


The Brittle Coil

by MidnightMaiden



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Adventure, Danger, Multiple point of view, The Kingdom v. Wisdom, True Love, Will and Lyra reunion, choice and consequence, fresh original angle, nearly ten years after The Amber Spyglass, the great war continues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightMaiden/pseuds/MidnightMaiden
Summary: Lyra spent nearly ten years trying to be happy living in her own world. But after receiving a marriage proposal from another man, she can no longer deny that a part of her still belongs to Will. Not caring what promises she made, or what the angel said all that long time ago, she leaves Oxford, determined to find a way to see Will again or spend the rest of her life trying.But when word of what Lyra is doing get outs, there are many who think it best she not succeed. And this time, they won't risk the consequences of leaving her alive.





	1. Returning North

**Author's Note:**

> I have read HDM more times than I can count and every single time I do I am changed all over again. It is devastating, complex, wonderous and burns itself into my heart. I always cry (a lot!) and can't get it out of my mind, sometimes for weeks. After reading Book of Dust I could barely contain myself and I was finally inspired to write the fanfic I've wanted to write since the first time I finished The Amber Spyglass. I have put a lot of thought, passion and research into it and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it.

 

Pan and Lyra sat in the dark on the edge of a rocky outcropping, the cold and the sharp stone unfelt through her anorak and layers of furs.  This time of year it was nearly always night but the snow was brilliant as quartz glittering under warm naphtha light as the glow of the aurora cast its ribboning colors over it.  They were silent, watching, though neither had quiet thoughts.  Once, on that terrible night that had changed so much, her father had torn apart that very same sky and built a bridge to another world.

Beside her, Pan stretched up to nip at her earlobe and her mind, already half-way across the bridge, came reeling back.  "Are you going to try it?" he asked, looking down at the alethiometer in her lap.

"Yeah, all right," she said, shifting her weight and prepared to go into that special state of being that was still so intimately familiar.  Using her teeth, she pulled off one of her mittens and her fingers reached to set the handles, then hesitated.  "What if it doesn't work, Pan?"

"Then it is just one more thing that doesn't," he answered and nudged her hand toward the winding wheels.

Not exactly encouraging, but true enough. So, she framed her question and hoped that being here, under the influence of the aurora, where the veil between worlds was thin, she would accomplish what she had so far failed to do.  It was not a simple question, and would not have a simple answer.  She did not pretend that the aurora was a magic solution either.  She had brought a notebook and pencil with her and once the needle began to move, she recorded every swing and twitch as much as she could before it broke her concentration and she had to start over again. Then, later, she would use the books to analyze what she managed to scratch out. 

Eventually her fingers were so cold she could no longer hold the pencil and it became impossible to keep her focus. Sighing, she rose stiffly, her cheeks and her nose red and stinging, and made her way back to her father's house on Svalbard.  It wouldn't have been her first choice, but it was the only place on the island that could accommodate her.  Thorold was long gone, and the place had been dusty and stale smelling when she had first arrived, but when Iorek had learned that she would be visiting, he’d had any broken window panes repaired and the consequent snow shoveled out, so it was warm and comfortable enough.

Pan slunk out from under her anorak to the tile floor of the vestibule as she lit the lamp and started the lengthy process of removing her boots and the multiple layers needed to keep her alive in the harsh Svalbard weather.  She folded or hung them each with care and swung open the door to the hall and the warm fire still blazing beyond. 

Unlike when her father had been here, it did not look like the elegant estate of a gentleman.  The fine leather chairs were pushed back against the walls, smaller carved tables were stacked one on another, books and gadgets which had been blown off the shelves by gales come in through broken windows still littered the bare wood floors and the rugs were rolled up and propped in a corner. 

Lyra had done nothing but unfurl one carpet in front of the fire and drag a large table and single chair over it.  On the table, open and ready beside tidy piles of her own notes were her books of readings, those invaluable possessions she both cherished and resented.  Dame Hannah herself had given them to Lyra when she had chosen to leave school almost four years ago now. She'd been just months away from the early graduation she had worked so hard for.

 On her way to the kitchen, she tossed her notebook on the table by the fire.  Her steps were heavy and her cold hands clumsy as she lit the stove, filled a pot with water and set it to boil.  The weight on her heart, the weary despair, made her feel as dull as those poor people in Cittàgazze, attacked by Specters. 

She swayed, gripping the edge of the countertop in both hands so tight her joints ached.  Unbidden tears fell from her eyes to tumble off her chin.  She thought she had never been so alone in all her life before.

But of course, she was never alone; Pan climbed up into her arms and she clutched him to her chest.

"Oh, Pan," she said in a strangled whisper, "there en't no one can help us.  What we done before, we got lucky or we had all kinds of help.  We had the alethiometer and the knife and Will. We couldn't have done any of it without Will."

She had kept her love for Will far from her and stood on her determination for so long, she felt like her heart was breaking all over again.  Grief and helplessness came back to her as strongly as they had on that wretched beach when she had finally understood.  And she knew Pan was suffering just as she was.  And then she knew that there must be a fourth part of people and hers was surely gone. 

Every song and play, every dance, every dream, they were all about finding, or loving, or holding on to, that fourth piece, and no one was ever truly at peace without it.  Some people never did find it.  Was it worse, to have it for just a moment only to lose it?  Was it worse that she knew the very real feel of Will's hands and his lips and his fierce eyes on her and the way she felt, so proud to be his and so intensely loved in his arms?

She could never know, but if it wasn't, she could not imagine how.  Or how anyone survived it.

 

~

 

There were days when Lyra would pause in her reading to run her fingers lovingly over the beautiful, meticulously detailed symbols painted on the soft pages and forget that the books were not hers.  Other days they were a guilty reminder of the day she had come to acquire them.

"But where will you go, child?" Dame Hannah had asked her. 

Lyra shrugged.  "Thomas Grey proposed to me."

"Ah, I had thought he might," Dame Hannah said, though her kind smile was a bit bemused.  "Surely he has not asked you to quit your studies?"

He had not, of course.  They'd met some months ago at a dinner party and it was his smile, so bright and genuine and brimming with life which she had noticed first about him.  His dæmon was a great grey and white wolf, whose tongue lolled humorously from the side of her mouth – nothing like the ferocious wolves of the Tartar guards – and she had the very same smile as Thomas' playing about her sharp teeth.  That small part of Lyra which struggled to stay in the present was drawn to it like a ghost to a warm beating heart.

 He had begun to call on her every Saturday and they’d gone together to the park, museums, dances, exhibits. Her enthusiasm, which had so often gotten her in trouble, delighted him. After their first outing, he had done the most extraordinary thing; he had pushed up her glove to expose the tender skin of her wrist and pressed his soft lips to her pulse there.  It had been a thrilling feeling and his later kisses on her mouth were just the same. 

What was more, she had been surprised to find that with every week that passed she was happy in his company.  She had thought she was happy at least, until he had shown up at her door, ring in hand and asked her to spend the rest of her life with him.  Without even fully understanding what she was doing, she had closed the door in his face and gone straight to Dame Hannah's office.

"No, it's not that," Lyra answered, fidgeting and growing inexplicably more distressed as she tried to find the words. "I know I en't – I know I'm not supposed to and I have tried, honest!" she finally burst out, then buried her face in her hands. 

She didn't know what to say.  Everything had come on her so suddenly she didn’t even know herself what to do with it.  A groan of frustration broke out of her and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.  Pan flowed up from her lap to curl himself around her neck and the press of his nose on her cheek lent her the fortitude to collect herself and try again. 

She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, pushed her hair behind her ears and looked up at Dame Hannah. "I didn't accept Mr. Grey.  I know what I promised, I know it every day, but I cannot be another man's wife.  I thought maybe...but I never could."

Dame Hannah nodded sympathetically and took one of Lyra's hands in hers, squeezing slightly.  "I'm sorry for that.  Perhaps one day you will feel differently, but one can only act on what is true for her in the present.  It is better to be sure," she said and Lyra felt comforted by the words.  "But why is it that you think this means you must leave St. Sophia's?"

This was the hardest part; Lyra felt sure that Dame Hannah wouldn't approve.  "I done what I was supposed to do.  I’ve told my stories and I've lived my life and I thought I would be happy, really happy, and I wouldn't forget all that happened, but I wouldn't feel it every day like it was only yesterday.  But I know now that I can't. 

“I have to try.  I have to try everything I can think of and when I have, if I still can't find a way then maybe that will be different.  But, Dame Hannah, when that angel came to us, even as she was telling us the worst news we could ever hear, she looked hopeful.  I didn't understand it then and I still don't but then I remembered she never told me that I wouldn't travel outside my world anymore, only Will. 

"So you see, if there is a way it must be up to me to do it and I could have spent these last six years trying to find it, only I didn't.  And I can’t waste even one more day.  Maybe I shouldn't, maybe it en’t what I’m supposed to do, but if I don't I won't really be living and so I wouldn't be doing what I promised anyway." 

The words came out all in a rush and with each one, Lyra was more and more sure that they were true, necessary, and her eyes blazed with that new conviction.

"Poor child," Dame Hannah said, lightly dabbing away the moisture that had collected in her eyes with a handkerchief.  "I suppose it was too much for any of us to expect that you would simply go to school and live on and grow up like any other student.  What you must still live with, I cannot imagine.  But I must ask again, if you leave here where will you go?"

"I dun – " In her distress, she'd forgotten what six years of schooling still hadn't made natural for her, but she caught herself and continued, "I don't know for sure.  I thought I would travel and see what I can find out.  Will and I weren't the only ones to find ourselves in another world, nor was Mr. Grumman neither, so perhaps there's another way.  It may be there's a way that not even the angels know."

When Dame Hannah rose and went to her bookshelf, Lyra was so surprised that she wasn't being lectured she didn't notice what the headmistress returned with until one of the books of readings was being held out to her. 

She took the book carefully, running tender fingers over the cover and looked at Dame Hannah in wonder.  "You can’t mean for me to take this?"

"I do.  If you must go, then you must, but I don't think you are likely to succeed without the alethiometer.  And you have worked hard, but you will need to keep up with your studies and continue to learn.  Your command is not strong yet and is unlikely ever to be without the books.  The rest are at my home and you may take them as well.  Do not mistake me, this is a loan, not a gift, so I expect you to care for them as I would while they are in your possession."

She was right, of course.  Lyra'd had her first breakthrough with the alethiometer just a year earlier.  For the first time, a pattern or a feeling or whatever it was that had guided her up and down the levels of meaning had simply come to her.  After that, it happened with more regularity, but not with the same complexity.  She was still heavily dependent on the books.  Even so, it gave her confidence.  And hope.

Then, together, she and Dame Hannah began to make preparations for Lyra's departure.

That had been four years ago now.  She had indeed traveled, searching the world for answers. And though her success had been limited she’d felt like herself again, the adventure and wanderlust she had held at bay in order to learn come roaring back to life. Not once since had she curbed her opinions for the sake of being polite or consciously corrected her speech unless _she_ felt the desire to do so.

The leads had grown colder but, as it must have done her father before, there was something about the north which called her back.

And so, she had come to be once more on Svalbard. 

 

~

 

In the last two weeks, Lyra had made very little progress.  She had managed to transcribe the whole message from the alethiometer, which was something she supposed, but she could not fathom what it meant to say.  It wasn't so simple as just looking up the fourteenth meaning of the crucible and writing down the word, like it was some sort of codex. 

When she asked something simple, like _is Dame Hannah well?_ which she did on a semi-regular basis, it did work a bit like that, but that was a question very easily asked and answered.  It was essentially just yes or no.  _How do I find a way to cross between the worlds so I can find Will and stay with him forever?_ was a different matter altogether and even figuring out how to frame the question had taken her weeks before she was sure she had it right.  Some of the meanings were so vague or obscure she couldn't begin to know how they went together.  Pan too, was at a loss to help. 

She had been given the grace to read the alethiometer before because she had needed to, the fate of human consciousness had needed her to.  Was it now being kept from her?  Her understanding had become better than most, but was still something separate from her, that natural ease just out of reach. Was what she wanted so wrong that some intervention would make it impossible for her breach the distance?

Iorek Byrnison would tell her it was so.  He had come to see her several times, but it was not until his last visit that he had asked the reason for her extended stay.  When she had confided her purpose, though his face was unreadable as always, there could be no doubt that the bear king was not pleased. 

"It is not for me to say what is in your human heart.  A bear does not feel as you, he does not love as you.  But, Lyra Silvertongue, did you learn nothing from the knife?" he had asked her.

She was too tired, her mind too full of the hypnotic swing of the needle, and she didn't understand what he meant.  "The knife is gone, Iorek.  I en't seen it done, but I know Will and so do you and he said he was going to break the knife, so that's just what happened." 

"You know that is not of what I speak.  I told you then that the knife had intentions of its own.  The foolish men who made it could not have known what those intentions were.  What if your path leads to the same?  There are consequences for breaking the rules of this world."

Lyra tried to consider what he said but she found that all it made her feel was a crippling inability to ever make a decision again.  Her father had told her that the worlds were a result of choices.  For every choice she made, other worlds came to be from the paths she had not chosen.  So did it even matter?  Over even the smallest decision, her world might survive, but another might collapse no matter what she did.  And that was just too much to consider. 

"It might be you're right, Iorek and it might be I am, but like you said, bears don't love as I do.  And I en't never given you any reason to think as I'd do something I didn't believe I had to," she had said proudly.

"I do not doubt your heart.  But there are things that cannot be forced," he'd answered and he had not been back since. 

She did not like to disappoint Iorek, but she could not think what to do for it.  It was not possible for her to stop now.  If there were consequences then at least she would have Will and they would face them together and hope that her choices did not hurt others as the guild's had.  And wasn't their love, if they regained it by work, earned it by opening their minds to the possibility of anything being possible, well wasn't that exactly how human beings made Dust?  She didn't know, but she chose to believe it anyway.

When the letters and numbers and symbols spread out all around her at the table began to blur into incomprehensible streaks of lead and she started to feel a little light-headed, she knew that she had to be done for the day.  She rose from her chair and stretched, her arms above her head and her fingers reaching for the ceiling as her muscles tightened pleasantly. 

"I suppose we ought to sleep, Pan," she said, yawning, but he was already scampering over the floor half way to the bedroom her father had used.  It was large and warm and reminded her the least of the only other time she had been here.

Pan lay on her pillow, waiting as she undressed and brushed out her hair until it fell in smooth waves between her shoulders.  She slipped beneath the coverlet, making a little sigh of pleasure as she sank into the soft mattress and Pan coiled himself up at her throat.  It was amazing to her that she could be so tired when she had done nothing but sit at a table all day, but her mind was exhausted and they were asleep within moments. 

_Lyra.._

_Someone was calling her name but it was no louder than the rustle of leaves in a light breeze – she thought it was Roger and somehow he was trapped in the world of the dead again.  There was no mist or shadow here though, no sad, pale ghosts reaching for her.  There was no 'here' at all, just nothingness and the voice._

_Lyra..._

_Lyra..._

When Lyra woke the next morning, she rubbed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead.  She felt disoriented, in that way that one does when they've had vivid dreams but can't remember them. 

"What is it?" Pan asked her.

Lyra blinked, then shook her head.  "Dunno... I think I dreamed of Roger.  Do you remember?"

"No, nothing," he said, still dozing on the bed as she went to the bathroom. 

After she emerged, she changed out her nightgown for a simple cotton dress with long sleeves, a sweater which buttoned up the front and thick wool socks.  The fires were banked and she set herself to lighting them one by one throughout the house, starting with the large oven in the kitchen.  By the time she had finished with the last and returned to the kitchen to make breakfast it was much warmer and she shucked off her sweater.  She lit the stove, reached for the cold box and didn't think of her dream again.

While she and Pan were trying to piece more of the alethiometer's message together, she suddenly asked, "What if they aren't missing us like we miss them?  What if he's doing what I done, only he said yes and got married and doesn't think about me at all?  All while we've been doing all this?"

"Do you really believe that?"

She didn't really even need to answer him, but she said, "No." Not Will.

It never occurred to her that he might have changed.  His nature was too solid, too stable in her mind to ever be anything different.  But when she tried to imagine what he was like now, how he might look, how he would smile – if he smiled -, where he lived, where he worked, if he had friends, she simply couldn't and she didn't often try.  To think of that was to think of him as he had been and she shied away from that like a hand held too close to a flame and snatched back.  The pain and guilt that she couldn't remember just the way his jaw set or the exact slope of his nose or the husky timber of his voice when he said 'Oh, Lyra' were more than she could bear.  She was forgetting him.  A little bit each day, she was forgetting him. 

"No," she repeated.  "And it makes me sick to think it, it really does, but I hope he hasn't been lonely.  I hope he hasn't felt alone..."

 _Like you and me,_ Pan finished for her silently. 

That night, and then the next and the next, she heard that voice quietly whispering: 

_Lyra..._

_Lyra..._

_Lyra..._

but it was gone from memory every morning like a footprint in falling snow. 

 

~

 

"You know, Pan, I was thinking," Lyra started, but she never had a chance to say what she was thinking because there was great crash as the window of the hall shattered.  A blast of arctic cold tore through the room, sending her notes flying like flakes of ash and rattling the pages of her books.

The hearth was sputtering in the freezing wind and she didn't know whether to run for her precious pages or run for cover.  That question was answered when the hideous face of a cliff-ghast came through the broken window, his foul stench carried in by the beating of leathery wings.  There was no question of her fighting; she had no weapons, had not imagined needing one here.  And even if she could make it to the door, she had on only her nightgown and socks.  But she knew from experience that where there was one of these creatures there were more.  So she snatched up the alethiometer and fled deeper into the house, Pan leaping up to her shoulder.

"Oh God, Pan, what do we do?" she cried as she ran down the corridor to her room.  The noise behind them grew as more of the things flew in through the window. 

"Just keep running!"

She reached her room, her heart racing, and thrust the door shut behind her.  Just as she slid the bolt home, there came the loud thud of the cliff-ghast slamming against the door.  She scrambled backward, Pan curled tight around her neck and whirled round when she saw winged shadows projected on the wall by the firelight.  There were more of the ghasts outside and she cursed her father for his damn vanity in the expensive windows that dominated nearly every room.

"You mean to make trouble, Lyra Silvertongue," shrieked the cliff-ghast clawing at her door, "but you have made enough already!"

The cliff-ghasts outside were hurling themselves against the glass.  They must not have whatever had broken the window of the hall, because it held though it shook alarmingly.  Lyra leapt across the room to the fireplace and took up the poker, putting her back to the flames and standing ready between each threat.  The pounding on every side grew louder and both she and Pan were missing the days when he could have been a tiger or a wildcat or even a dragon.  As it was, he braced himself on her shoulder, prepared to launch himself at any of them who managed to get close enough.

The window was holding firm, but the door bucked like a mad horse then splintered apart.  Then the victorious screeching of the cliff-ghast followed him in and he set himself on Lyra.  She swung the poker with all her might and it connected hard, the impact reverberating up her arm.  He was flung off course, snarling and howling, but there were more racing in behind him.  She swung again, trying hard to think of Will and what he would do.  One of the cliff-ghasts avoided her poker and dove in, swiping at her shoulder.  She cried out as his dirty nails bit into her, but she stood her ground and thrust the poker up into his face.  With a shriek he retreated and she backed up even closer to the fire.

Soon, the room was filled with the creatures.  She held her poker out feebly before her, swinging when one got close, until she realized they were taunting her.  They could descend on her like a cloud of flesh-stripping locusts whenever they liked.  She swung again in some sort of effort to delay what she and Pan both knew was inevitable.

Then she could have laughed out loud and collapsed in relief when a great roar sounded over the shrieking of the cliff-ghasts.  A mass of white fur and metal burst into the room.  Her attackers tried to flee, but the armored bear was between them and the door.  With just a few powerful swipes of his massive paws they were down and his mighty jaw made quick work of their filthy, reeking necks and spines.  Their dying screams were a song of joy to Lyra's heart for she knew with certainty that they would have killed her, slowly, and with the same joy in theirs.

The bear turned from the corpses at his feet to face her.  He was not a bear she knew but she could have thrown her arms around him and kissed his bloody face and ten years ago she would have done.  Instead, she hurried to his side, looking for any injury, exclaiming, "Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  Are you hurt?  However did you get here?"

He stood quietly, allowing her to reassure herself that he had sustained no injuries, then asked, "Lyra Silvertongue, have you been harmed?"

"No! No! You came just in time!  How did you know?"

"King Iorek Byrnison has set a regular guard to watch you in your house."

Lyra felt a blaze of love for her friend, but it quickly turned to puzzlement.  "But why?"

"I do not know."  He shook the dripping gore from his maw and began to walk past her.  "If you are well, I will send for my comrades and we will remove these creatures.  The window we will fix as soon as we are able to."

"Wait," she said to the bear's back.  His black eyes looked around his shoulder at her, waiting.  "Thank you. Will you please tell King Iorek I'd like to see him, if he'll come?"

"It will be done."

After he left, Lyra was reminded that she actually had been hurt as the adrenaline drained away and her shoulder started to throb painfully. It would get infected, probably, if she didn't tend to it.  She didn't want to be around to see the bears cleaning up the mess of corpses in her room anyway, so she and Pan went to the bathroom to see what there was in the way of bandages.  There wasn't much.  In the end, she took a bottle of spirits from the glass display that was still stocked from when her father had lived here and used it to sanitize the wound then bound it with a torn up towel.

She didn't know how long the bears would be so she folded herself up in the bathtub, clutching the bottle of liquor in white knuckles with Pan on her lap.  It might be shock, or else her shoulder hurt more than she had thought, but Lyra felt strangely unbalanced.  She took a drink of the spirits and the harsh bite and sudden warmth in her belly felt good, anchoring, so she had some more.

"That's strong," Pan cautioned.

"I hope so." Wincing, she took an even bigger drink. "Don't look at me like that.  We were just almost killed!"

"So your answer is to get drunk?"

"For now.  Else, I don't know how I'll be able to sleep."

Pan didn't have anything else to say to that, which she took as grudging concession.  They could hear the bears at work, but couldn't guess at what they were doing.  If they couldn't fix the window, she and Pan would have to find somewhere else to stay.  The house would be much too cold with such a large area open to the outside and it was unlikely that they had panes of glass handy.  But no one suggested that they would have to leave, so perhaps they did, or were planning something else.

That made her worry about her books and the notes she had spent so long painstakingly transcribing.  Tumbling ungracefully from the tub, her head spinning not unpleasantly, she tripped down the corridor to the hall.  The closer she got, the colder the air became.  By the time she got to the hall, she was shivering and her feet were freezing on the hard floor.  Someone had gathered up her papers and stacked them under a heavy rock on the table by her books.  The bears were removing the sharp, broken shards of glass still attached to the window frame. Not one of them looked her way as she scooped up her things and dashed out of the cold room.

She set the books and papers carefully on the floor next to the bathtub, Pan giving her a quizzical look as she left the bathroom again and returned with her arms full of pillowy goose down blankets. 

"Are we going to live in the bathroom now?"

"Course not. But I think we can stay warm best in here.  And besides, I think it must be the only room in the whole house without windows."  It did have a fireplace, but Lyra didn't think any cliff-ghasts would come down the chimney with a fire going even if they could fit. 

They spent the rest of the night bundled up in the tub reorganizing everything that had been blown out of order and trying not to think about what had nearly happened.  It had been a very long time since anyone had tried to kill them.  It made Lyra even more sure that she had been right about what she had to do.  Whatever was happening in the world, or possibly all of the worlds, her role in it was not over.  Once again, there were greater forces at play.  It was going to start all over again.

That thought was so upsetting, Lyra had another long drink straight from the bottle. All she wanted was to find Will. That was all. If the cost for that was another divine entanglement then she would have to find a way to reconcile herself to paying it. Only this time it felt considerably more difficult. For all that she was older and wiser, there was one thing she did not know and which her younger self had; this time she could not be sure which side she was on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this first chapter (or if you didn't), leave a comment and let me know what is working, what isn't, etc. so I can make each new installment better than the last. Thanks!


	2. The Whisperer

Lyra had been right in thinking that there were no window panes readily available on Svalbard, but they had covered the missing glass with a sturdy tarpaulin the first night then set to boarding it over with thick wood planks. The solution was agreeable to Lyra, who did not care what was done with the house any more than the bears did. She had been surprised that they had replaced the windows that were broken before she had arrived, but was told that it had been done on Iorek's orders because there had been more time to acquire the glass. Now, she just needed it to be covered so she didn't freeze to death. 

They had fixed the window and removed the dead cliff-ghasts, but they had not cleaned up the blood that had coated the floors and sprayed across the room. Lyra had considered simply leaving it and taking up in another of the rooms. Then she was being shaken awake by Thorold, screaming for Iorek, leaping from the ice bridge, then falling, falling, sliding down the cliff with Roger's body in her arms - and immediately dismissed the idea. 

Rather than attempting to wash the blood-spattered bedding, she had shredded it and fed it piece by piece into the fire. She couldn’t burn the walls, of course, but she managed to scrub away most of the dark stains. The floor was another matter entirely. There was so much blood pooled on the hardwood that it had soaked deep into the grain like water in thirsty roots. 

She had filled yet another bucket of warm water and was now on hands and knees, pushing a white towel soaked to red over the floor, Pan watching from a nearby chair and periodically imparting unhelpful advice. 

"Yes, I know it just seems to be smearing it around," Lyra told him, dumping the towel in the bucket, the water immediately turning a dark red, then wringing it out and dropping it heavily back on the floor, "but I don't know any other way to do it." 

"Why don't we just let it dry and then cover it up?" 

She paused in her efforts and looked up at him, head cocked. It was a tempting idea. "We can't. I bet it will start to smell and then we'll be stuck with it." 

The towel was too saturated to be useful anymore and the bucket was filled with more blood than water. With a frustrated huff, she got to her feet, dumped the towel back in the bucket and hefted both up by the handle. She shuffled awkwardly, being burdened by the uneven weight of the heavy bucket on just one side, to the kitchen and hauled it onto the countertop. After some searching, she'd found a laundry basin and dragged it over by the sink. She chucked the sodden towel onto the growing pile inside it, emptied the bucket into the sink and turned the tap, waiting for the water to heat, then refilled it. 

She repeated this process again and again over several hours until eventually, no blood came up on the towels and the water remained clear. There were still several large stains marking the beautiful hardwood like deep, angry bruises. Those, she would cover. Around the house were various furs which she gathered up and pieced together in a hirsute carpet over the floor before the fireplace, where most of the damage had been done. 

It turned out to be quite comfortable and she had started to sprawl out on it with her books and notes rather than sitting in her hard chair at the table in the hall. She did wish there were fewer windows in the room, but that was a pointless wish, given that there was no better alternative anywhere in the house other than the bathroom. The tub had made her feel safe that first night but was too cramped to realistically replace a proper bed. 

Three days after the attack, she had still not seen nor heard from Iorek. She thought perhaps that the bear, whose name she had never learned, had not passed on her message, but knew that wasn't likely, which left her with only the unpleasant knowledge that Iorek had chosen to ignore it. She loved Iorek and valued his friendship. And she had always taken a great amount of pride in knowing how highly the King of the Bears valued and supported her. Even when he had been uncertain, he'd had faith in her and he had helped her. She did not like to think that she might have lost that. It made her feel as though she was being made to choose between him and her love for Will and that made her feel guilty and filled with doubt. 

Sensing her anxiety, Pan flowed up to her uninjured shoulder to press his slender muzzle to her cheek. She was lying on the furs before the fire trying to make sense of three symbols she had determined went together and reached up to stroke his smooth coat. Neither spoke, deep as they were in thought, each just taking comfort in the closeness of the other, when they heard the bell that meant someone had come through the front gate. 

Lyra scrambled to her feet, Pan leaping from her shoulder, and they ran to see who was at the door. When she cracked open the door on the far side of the vestibule, she saw Iorek standing in the snow outside. 

"Oh, Iorek! Let me just get my coat and things on and I'll come out. Unless you want to come in?" 

"I will wait for you here," he answered. 

As ever, she could not tell by looking his feelings about being here, so she pulled on the winter gear she could not venture outdoors without as quickly as possible so as not to keep him waiting. When she stepped out into the chill air, she did not see him at first. He had moved back outside the gate and was waiting with his back to her, looking up at the aurora dancing overhead. She was so relieved that he had come she wanted to run to him, but she walked somewhat timidly to his side and looked up at the display in the sky too. 

They stood in silence for a moment before Iorek, without turning his head, asked her, "Why did you ask for me, Lyra Silvertongue?" 

"I wanted to ask you why you have the bears watching me," she said, following his example and only glancing at him from the corner of her eye. 

"They are not watching you, they are watching the house." 

Lyra frowned, thinking. That was the conclusion she had come to. Initially, she had considered that he might be keeping an eye on her so that she did not do something like follow the precedent of her father and blow a hole in the sky. But the attack of the cliff-ghasts was an external threat, and the more likely cause of the guard, which only led to more questions. 

"But why?" 

He turned to look at her then. "It is not only you and I who know what you mean to do. I do not trouble myself with human affairs. Even so, I have heard rumors which caused me concern for your safety. There are those who think it best that you go no further with your efforts." 

"And you're one of them." 

"And I am one of them," he agreed, "though I do not believe that speaks to my allegiance. I fear what may happen if you succeed but I would not set myself against you." 

"I never thought you did. I could never think that. But I hate that I know you think I'm doing wrong," she said. 

"It is true that I wish you would content yourself with living your life, which you so nearly lost, in your own world. But I cannot know what may come of such events. I was right to repair the knife so that you could achieve what you were meant to. If Will had not destroyed the knife, however, my fixing it could have caused untold damage. I have thought on this more than I am comfortable with and while I cannot say that you are in the right, I also cannot say that you are wrong. As you are determined on your course, I suppose we will know in time. But, Lyra Silvertongue, whatever may come I will stand your friend." 

She reached out to throw her arms around him, but he butted his head hard against her. "Understand this. I remain your friend, but my advice is still that you abandon your cause." 

Lyra did not answer right away, giving her friend's words the respect and consideration they deserved. "I never told you before, Iorek," she started slowly, thinking through every word, "I never told anyone but Pan actually 'cause of course he already knew. When we went back to Oxford, after everything, things seemed to be normal mostly. But they weren't. It doesn't matter the details, but it felt like the whole city was trying to keep us safe. And I can't think why it would unless we had more to do. Mr. Scoresby told me I should rest when this was all done, that life was good and I should put all that happened behind me and live it. But you see, I don't think it is done. I think we were all just fooling ourselves that it was, because Metatron was gone and my father was gone and without them, well...I mean, they were it really. Who else could do what they done? 

"But the older I've got and the more I've learned, I think that what they were fighting for was much bigger than just two people. So, just them dying wouldn't be enough. It might've slowed things down, it might've made one side stronger for a while, but it en't over. I wish I could do what Mr. Scoresby said and I will if I can, but it's not just yet. There's still more to do." 

She wasn't sure if she'd said everything she wanted to say and she wasn't sure she'd said it right; everything was still trying to make itself clear in her mind. Even so, she knew there was truth to it for better or worse. Her father's rebellion was like the entire life of a mayfly to the angels who had been fighting the war for millennia. So the last ten years were nothing to the larger scheme even if they seemed like an eternity to her. It may have seemed over to her, but she knew somehow that it was not. 

"Even if that is true, could it be that you are no longer meant to be involved?" 

"Yes," she conceded. "It might be I'm just weak, too human, but I am lonely, Iorek. Even if anyone ever believed all that I did, they could not know what it felt like. They cannot know the grief I still feel when I struggle with the alethiometer or the regret and guilt and confusion I still have over my mother. They've never seen people die or be torn apart. That moment under the blade of the guillotine at Bolvangar still wakes me in the night. 

"And what's worst of all, they will never know all I lost for them. We could have been selfish, Will and I, and probably there are other people who would have been, but we weren't. And not just about the land of the dead, 'cause that was for us as much as anyone. But we could've spent our ten years then gone down to the land of the dead together and held fast to each other in all the matter of the world forever and left it to someone else to worry about Dust." 

Lyra pulled Pan closer to her chest where he hid in her anorak, choking down a sob. She didn't know if bears cried, but if they did she knew Iorek never would. Like fear, he would master it so she tried her best to do the same. "You told me once that Will and I were worthy of each other. Can you imagine anyone else that ever could be? Because I can't and I don't care anymore if it's selfish. I can't go on knowing that he is out there, somewhere, and I just never tried to find him. I was too young when I was forced to make that choice, I just took other people's word for the truth without questioning it and now I am going to find out for myself." 

"Very well," was all the bear king said. 

 

~ 

 

Lyra jerked awake, her eyes open wide. She was in her father's room at Svalbard, not hearing voices in an enchanted sleep. There was no cave, no horny black hands tearing at wings, no ghosts. Just the soft down of her pillows, the crackle of the fire burning low in the grate and her own racing heart. But that voice...every night she heard it whispering, beckoning. Had she known that yesterday? She had a strange sense that she had never remembered hearing it before, yet now she remembered each time. It was just her name repeated, over and over like an incantation. 

"Lyra." 

She froze, lying perfectly still as her eyes searched the dark. That was not a spectral voice. It was a very real voice, saying her name, quiet and somewhat hesitant but undeniably here in this room with her. 

"Lyra, don't be frightened." 

Real and male. It was no good that he told her not to be frightened; she was terrified. She wanted to close her eyes tight like a child hiding from monsters. There was enough starlight coming through her father's bloody windows to see dimly by, but she could not detect the source of the voice anywhere in front of her so she would have to move. How had Iorek's bears missed a man entering the house? Thinking of Iorek, and of Will, she threw back her heavy blankets and whirled around to face the intruder, rising to her knees on the mattress as quickly as she could. 

With the starlight behind him, she could not see the man's face, but she could see that his hands were up loosely at his sides, an unmistakable gesture that he was unarmed and meant her no harm. She backed up on the mattress all the same, meaning to leap off the other side and run for the door. When she looked to Pan, to make sure he understood what to do, she was greatly shocked to see him still curled up asleep on the pillow beside hers. She blinked in confusion and during that moment of hesitation the stranger took a step forward. 

"Lyra, please, I swear you are safe," he said slowly, his tone cautious. 

She snatched up Pan who, amazingly, remained asleep, ready to flee anyway. "If you mean that, light the lamps and show me your face then." 

"I will if you promise not to run." 

That had been exactly her plan. And despite herself, between his ability to evade the bears and Pan's still sleeping in her arms, she found she was curious. "Alright then." 

She rocked back on her heels, ready to bolt, as he took a taper from near the fire and lit the lamps. As the room grew brighter, she was able to make out more of the man. He wasn't tall like John Faa but he would still tower over her. His hair was dark and his shoulders broad but his back was still to her. When the last lamp was lit, he stood motionless for a moment. Then he blew out the taper, the hand holding it dropped slowly to his side and he turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. My plan is to keep posting a chapter a week, so stay tuned!


	3. Waking Dreams

Before she was even aware that she had moved, Lyra was half way across the room to him. She took another step closer then another, another, another until she was before him, looking up into a face that was changed, but still so dear and familiar to her. With tentative hands she reached up to touch his brow, his real brow and his real jaw and his real lips. 

She whimpered and a shuddering little cry rose from her throat. "It's never you, Will?" she whispered. 

"Oh, Lyra," he said, his deep voice strained, and he crushed her to him. 

She collapsed into the unfamiliar breadth and muscle of his chest, shaking violently as sobs racked her body and hot tears poured from her eyes. His arms were strong around her, holding her together as nearly ten years of missing and longing for him crashed in on her. "You're here," she sobbed, her fingers curling into the soft material of his shirt. "How are you here?" 

He murmured soothing, nonsense words in her ear that she could not understand through her tears. It didn't matter; their rumbling cadence was like a comforting spice, satisfying as hot summer rain on pavement. Her crying ceased at last and his hold loosened. She wanted to grab him back but he stepped away, his head shaking slightly. 

"Please," he said, "I just want to look at you." 

For the first time since she had realized who was in her room with her, Lyra felt suddenly self-conscious as his eyes, straight and strong as ever, looked her over from her bare feet to her tangled hair. It had never occurred to her before, to wonder how he would see her. Much of the time that they had been together before they had been dirty and tired and hurt. For her part, she was dazzled by the handsome, powerful man he had become. She had imagined him a million times, but this solid reality of him – it was so much more than she ever could have conjured. Next to Will, all other men, however attractive, however clever, were false coin. 

He continued to stare and she found she had to look away, her cheeks coloring. 

"You are beautiful," he said and one finger under her chin forced her face back up to his. He was gazing at her like a man in a dream. 

As if in perfect accord, she moved into him and his mouth came down on hers. She could feel the exquisite pleasure of his kiss in every part of her body, flickering from her lips and out over her skin like a flame which warmed but did not burn. She thought it must be something like Serafina Pekkala feeling the moonlight on her skin. She thought it must be better. Her fingers wound through his rich dark hair; his hands went to the small of her back, bundling her against him. When her lips parted, the heat in her blood rose and she knew she had never known such complete joy. 

She gave a quiet keen of distress as he pulled back, but then he was kissing her face, her temples, her neck. He slipped her nightgown off over one shoulder to brush his lips slowly, sensuously from the rapid pulse at her throat along the delicate ridge of her collarbone. Her knees gave way. In one efficient, unhesitating movement he swept her up before she could fall. Oh, how different and yet wonderful it was to be in his arms now that he was a man. 

With extreme tenderness, he lay her on the furs amongst her books, and lowered himself down beside her. She turned on her side and rested her head on her hands folded under her cheek, looking up at where he loomed over her, propped up on one elbow. He smelled clean, masculine, like a winter storm. Their legs twined together, as if they could not bear a single moment that they were not touching. 

Tears came again to her amazed eyes and she did nothing to stop them. "You should be a stranger to me," she reflected, "but I never felt so safe before. It's just the same as I always felt with you." 

He bent to kiss her hair then played with a piece of it between his fingers. "We can never be strangers to each other. No matter what lives we may have lived, no matter how we might have changed, we know the truth of each other in way that no two people ever have." 

Her tears now were sliding down her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, leaving in their path cool, tingling tracks. They did not speak again for a long time. They slowly, intently refamiliarized their bodies—familiarized themselves with these news bodies. There must have been a dozen questions or more they each wanted to ask, but not one of them seemed important anymore. Lyra was lost in the impossibility of him being here, in her father's old prison on Svalbard, and kissing her as if he had been slowly dying of thirst for ten years and she was water. She felt just the same. 

It was Will, not she, who spoke first. He buried his face in her hair, breathing deeply, and whispered onto her neck. "Lyra—" 

"Don't. Please, Will. If it were good, what you got to say, you'd've said it before now." 

He sat up, leaning back against the bricks of the fireplace and pulled her into his lap, holding her to his bare chest. His belt buckle pressed into her uncomfortably, but she could barely feel it. She had gone horribly numb as she waited for him to speak. She knew he would. 

"Lyra, I can't stay because I'm not really here." 

Her palm was pressed to his chest, over his steadily beating heart, and she didn't understand him. She had never felt anything so acutely real in all her life before. "How can you not be here, when I can see you and I can touch you?" She stretched up, kissing him hard. "I can taste you." She bit down on his lip and he winced. "I can hurt you. How can that be if you en't here?" 

He touched a thumb to his lip, his brow furrowed. Then he said, "look at Pan." 

When she did so, she saw that her dæmon was still fast asleep where she had left him. The shock of seeing Will had put that from her mind. Since their separation, it was possible for one of them to sleep while the other was awake, strange and uncomfortable as it was, but it was shocking that he hadn't woken through everything. She looked helplessly at Will. 

"You're asleep, Lyra. And when you wake, I won't be able to stay, not just yet anyway. I haven't worked out how to do it yet. It's taken years just to work out how this might be done, and I've been calling you for weeks, trying to reach you." 

"I heard you, I just never remembered it later!" 

"I know. But you must understand this: you are not dreaming. This is real." 

"I don't understand. If I'm sleeping, then this must be a dream and I must be wishing for punishment to dream it. God, I hope I forget this one too. This is just too cruel!" She was thinking of morning, when she would wake, overjoyed and whole at last, only to remember the truth. Panic started to choke her, tightening her throat; she couldn't breathe, she couldn't _breathe _.__

____

Will shook her gently but all she could do was shake her head. "Wait here," he said and stood, leaving her alone on the rug. She wrapped her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth and gasping as she tried to get a hold of herself. When Will returned he grabbed her hand and she jumped, a rush of air filling her lungs. 

____

"Will!" she cried. Blood welled in her palm and colored the edge of the silver letter opener in his hand. 

____

"I know you don’t believe me now, but you will see that I am telling you the truth—it's hard to explain—" his face was set in frustration and he paced a few steps, then braced himself with both hands on the mantle, his shoulders tense as he stared into the flames. Then he turned and sank to his knees before her. "Tomorrow, that cut will still be there. And I will come back, every night, but that is the best I can do for now." 

____

She closed her fist around the wound, fear still alive and buzzing in her mind. "You promise?" she asked, lip trembling. 

____

"I promise." 

____

"I'm afraid to wake up." 

____

"I know," he said. He settled back on the furs, one arm out and open for her. "Come, lay beside me." 

____

She curled up against his side and tried to think on it no more as he stroked her back, but she couldn’t. Without him, the life of inferior imitation she had been living was the best she could hope for. "I want you, Will,” she said to his chest. “I know what you've said, but if this is all I ever get, if you can't get back to me, then I at least want to know what it's like to be loved by you. I want to have that to remember." 

____

"No," he said, his tone gentle but determined. "I will come back to you, have no doubt. And when I finally make love to you it is going to be when we are both fully awake in body and mind. I have spent too much time thinking about it to let it be spoiled." 

____

"But what if that can never happen?" 

____

"Then we'll talk about it again if that time comes." 

____

It wasn't the answer she wanted, but it felt right anyway. 

____

~ 

____

When she woke again, she immediately knew that it was genuine waking this time because she felt Pan crawl over her back and wriggle against her breast. She held him, trying to ward off the avalanche of disappointment crushing her. It was so unfair! Will, her beloved Will, had been so real, so very tangible in her arms. 

____

And then she was suddenly furious. If she must be tormented during every waking moment, could she not be left to sleep in peace? Was it too much to ask that the very few hours she managed be free of such petty torture? She jumped from the bed and screamed. Stumbling through the half-dark, she snatched at her notes, tearing them and tossing the shreds as the sound of her grief rose and rose against the silence of the house and the still, snowy cliffs outside. Pan simply looked on, baffled. 

____

"What is it, Lyra?" 

____

Her screams turned to a great, heart-broken wailing. She knew that Pan felt every bit of it and he did not understand why they were suffering so, but she could not do anything to explain. All she could do was tear apart her hope until she finally collapsed to the furs in a pile of exhausted grief and spent tears, her throat raw and aching. 

____

"A dream. It was just a stupid, pointless dream. And all of this—" she grabbed a scrap of paper and flung it away "—is pointless! Its just false hope. We en't never seeing Will or Kirjava again!" 

____

Pan watched the paper flutter to the floor and saw that it was streaked red. He crept closer. “You’re bleeding, Lyra.” His whiskers touched her hand and he nudged at her fingers. 

____

"What?" She turned her hand over and her heart stopped. There, scoring her palm was a shallow cut, newly opened, across a cracked mess of dried blood. And now that she saw it, she felt it, sharp and biting. It was the best pain she had ever known. "Pan! He was real!" 

____

"Who?" 

____

And then it hit her that he truly didn't know. There had never been anything that she knew and he didn't. It was unbelievable that she'd been able to be hurt without him knowing and feeling it too. He had one secret from her, from the time after they had been parted, but she had accepted that as his story to keep until he was ready to tell it a long time ago. Since, there had been no secrets between them. In fact, it was nearly impossible to have secrets. Perhaps it was because they had never again put so much distance between them. So, even as she told him the story of Will coming to her while she slept, she opened up her thoughts to him too until he felt like he had been there with her. 

____

"I have to go back to sleep, Pan!" 

____

"But you've only just gotten up." 

____

"I know, I know, but he can only come to me while I'm sleeping." Already, she had thrown herself back into bed, her eyes shut tight. She reckoned if she just lay there in the quiet for long enough, she was sure to fall asleep. 

____

Pan swiped a paw at her forehead. "Don't be stupid. If Kirjava wasn't there, he was probably sleeping too, so he's probably awake now and doing—do you even know what he might be doing?" 

____

"No," she admitted, sitting up reluctantly. It hadn't been a dream, but it shared some of the same qualities. She hadn't questioned much. It hadn't occurred to her to ask him about his life, despite having spent countless hours wondering, and she hadn't even considered Kirjava, whether she was just away from him, as unlike almost any other dæmon she could be, or if she was sound asleep in another world like Pan had been. She had just been so stunned to see him. "But he must be looking in regular or how would he ever know if we was sleeping?" 

____

"Even if he is, we can't just sleep all the time." 

____

She had to concede that he was right, but the thought of waiting to put her hands on Will once more was daunting. "I know, but Pan, I can't tell you. I so wish you could see him and Kirjava could be there too, and I think he's trying to make that work. And you know, I bet Dr. Malone is helping him, so probably he'll figure it out soon." 

____

"Yeah, I'll bet she is." 

____

"I guess we just have to wait then." She looked around at the shredded scraps of paper littering the room and groaned. "Well, at least we got something to do while we wait. If he's been working so hard all this time, then that's what we got to keep doing." 

____

And so, they began laboriously fitting together the notes she had destroyed. There was nothing to join the paper, so stroke by stroke, she inked the various meanings and interpretations on fresh pages. Then there was the matter of putting them in order. She hadn't bothered to number the pages, even after they’d been scattered before and she wished she had. Few seemed to easily come one after another. Even more of them fit no order at all, were just random musings and sketches. 

____

When they had heard her screams, the bears had come to defend her, but she assured them that there was no threat and they seemed satisfied with this answer. Before they disappeared back into the snow she asked them to send the same message to Iorek, in case he had heard her or heard of it later. Just now, she did not want to be interrupted again. She was too on edge and she did not want to have to explain why. 

____

The day seemed to go on and on and she found herself watching the clock, disappointed each time she looked only to find that mere minutes had passed. The multitude of windows were no help in indicating the progress of time. It wasn't wholly dark. If there was no cloud cover, the moon and stars were bright on the snow and during what would be day further south, the island was cast in a dimly lit twilight but that did nothing to demarcate the passing hours. 

____

She could tell that her fidgeting was irritating Pan and she realized that she wanted to sleep so badly that she would never be able to. So, after she made supper, eating it as slowly as possible, she resorted to raiding her father's liquor cabinet again. She grabbed a bottle of what she was guessing was vodka, the bottle wasn't labeled and she didn't much care either way, and started to drink it by shots. 

____

It didn't put her to sleep but Pan, thinking himself completely undetected, stumbled, knocking things over and giggling, all around the house trying to sneak up on her. Despite her anxiety she started to play along, letting him get closer and closer before she whirled and chased him, laughing and stumbling herself, into a hasty retreat. When their heads were spinning and their sides sore, they finally collapsed onto the bed, dead drunk.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading. Any comment you may have would be very much appreciated! Stayed tuned for next week's new chapter.


	4. Changed

Lyra was wakened by the sweet pressure of lips on hers. Not bothering to open her eyes, she linked her arms around Will's neck, pulling him closer. "Mmm," she murmured against his mouth and he slid his tongue over her lips as if trying to taste the sound. They parted in answer, allowing him to dip inside, stirring her. Will shifted onto the bed beside her, bearing her down into the pillows. They continued on that way until they were both breathless, and in such a state of frenzied desire that they had to stop before they had gone too far to turn back. 

"You came back," she said, stroking his hair, still in awe of him. 

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I did. And I will as long as you will let me." 

"Forever. I will want you forever, even like this," she warned him. 

"Good," he said and smiled. 

It was a smile she had never seen before, light, unburdened. Last night had felt like a desert mirage, shimmering and beautiful, but ready to dissolve back into the sand when she got too close. And even if some part of her knew it wasn't real, a larger part had given in entirely to the hope of the hallucination. Now that Will had come back, some of the panic and that need to extract every moment of being with him before he drifted apart on the wind had eased and she began to note other changes in him. And each one of them was accompanied by a curious weight pressing on her heart that she couldn’t name – hurt, guilt, resentment? 

His eyes were still fierce, blazing, but it was a different sort of ferocity. The cold promise of threat had thawed to a deeper, settled passion. His posture was more relaxed, no longer tensed and ready, sometimes eager, to fight. The defiant jut of his jaw had given way to easy laughter. He had friends, she realized, and a life that he was proud of. His mother must be well. He had been happy. She thought of the changes he must see in her and it made her suddenly want to hide from him. 

There were so many moments that could have changed everything for her. The retiring room, fleeing from the cocktail party in London, keeping Roger with her when she could have sent him along with the gyptians and the rest of the kids. Perhaps worst of all was when she and Pan had decided to go into that new world and discover the truth about Dust. Because no moment in her life was worse than the one when she had burst through the door of that café in Cittàgazze and crashed into a straight-browed murderer. A part of her hated him for being there and changing her life so irrevocably. 

For a while after Will had raised his hand to the air and pinched closed those edges imperceivable to anyone else, his cherished face disappearing forever little by little, she had done as she had promised. She had gone to Dame Hannah's school. She had made friends with the same ease that she always had, enchanting everyone with her stories of armored bears, witches, and aeronauts. She had told them everything, from her travels to the world of the dead to even stranger, foreign things like Cola and the cinema. No one had believed her, of course, but they loved to hear it and it had helped her anyway to talk about it. 

There were some stories, though, that she could never tell: that her adventures had truly happened, that most had been terrifying, that they had altered the lives and afterlives of everyone in every world forever. Most of all, that she had left behind something priceless and irreplaceable in another Oxford for the sake of the very same people who were ignorant of it all and who she had to spend every day with, talking about nothing things as if none of it had ever happened. And she never spoke of Will. 

She had been kissed, and more, and she had enjoyed it. They were a makeweight, silly and little more than boys. Even then, with his inexperience and his age, Will had been more of a man than they could ever aspire to be. So it was as easy as drinking stolen sherry with her classmates or sneaking in, trying not to giggle, after curfew, to kiss and be kissed by them. 

When it was not so easy, she had tried to immerse herself in study, but she had just never been one for being still. She had thought several times very seriously of just stealing the books of readings and running away, but Pan had reminded her that they had very few places they could run to so surely they would be caught, and also that it just wouldn't be right. Then she had thought she would just go without them. But she couldn't bear it. 

Then it had gotten harder and harder, until she had met Thomas. In the end though, he was just another distraction too. After that, she had lost the ability to even fake happiness, much less feel the real thing as Will so clearly did. 

"What are you thinking?" he said. 

"Nothing." She crawled over him off the bed and grabbed a dressing gown from a hook on the back of the door. He sat up, watching her, his mouth turned down in a frown. "Would you like something to drink? My father left some very good bottles of Tokay here," she said and left for the cellar before he could say anything, taking a decanter from the liquor cabinet on her way. 

"Your father?" Will asked, pulling his shirt back on as he followed her. 

"Of course, I never said," she said, keeping her back to him while she selected a bottle of the '98 and decanted it. "This is where my father lived when he was a prisoner on Svalbard." He reached out for her, but she ducked under his arm and went past him out of the cellar. "Glasses are in the kitchen." 

Eventually, she had poured them both a glass and she could no longer use the wine as a device to put him off. They were in the kitchen standing across from each other, leaning back against opposite countertops in silence. 

"Lyra, what has happened? I don't recall you ever being one to hold back." 

"This is all very strange. I think I must've drunk a half a bottle of vodka at least earlier, but I en't drunk at all now. I wonder – " 

"Lyra." 

She looked feebly down at her glass. Will crossed the room and plucked it from her hands, setting it down behind her. When he kissed her, she melted like sugar in a saucepan. 

"Now, tell me," he said in a gentle command, his lips still hovering near hers. 

It was impossible to deny him anything when he was that close. "Have I changed very much?" she asked. 

"Yes, in some ways. No in others. Is that what this is about? Of course we've both changed. We were bound to, weren't we?" 

"Yes, I suppose. But you've changed for the better and I – you've been happy, haven't you?" 

He planted his hands on the countertop on either side of her, his leg coming between hers as the weight of his hips pushed her back against the counter edge and his eyes, blue as the hottest flame, looked past and through and into her. "I have. Are you angry with me?" 

She swallowed, heart pounding in her throat. "No." 

"You're lying," he said and kissed her hot cheeks. 

Her blood was screaming, singing in every vein of her body. She would fly apart but for her skin, alight and blazing at his touch, holding her together. Her eyes closed and her head tipped back, a small _ahhh_ escaping into the silence from her parted lips. His dark head bent to kiss the length of her exposed throat. Overwhelming need built like a tempest, twisting and coiling in on itself over and again so her arms came around him, fingers digging into his taut, muscle-bound shoulder blades to hold it back. Strong hands gripped her thighs and she was lifted up to the countertop. She arched into him, inviting more, but he backed away. 

"You are too distracting," he grumbled, pushing a hand through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck. 

She could only sit, still a little dazed, on the counter like a marionette cut free. He took a step closer but stopped just short of her reach. 

"I – what?" she finally managed to say. 

His shoulders dropped. Still avoiding touching her, he retrieved her wine and handed it to her then grabbed his own. She took a grateful sip. Her head cleared some, and she drank more. 

"Lyra, I could kiss you like that – and more – forever. Truly I could. But you _are _angry with me and I must know why."__

____

She bit her lower lip just a little and did not miss Will's eyes flicker to it and quickly away. "It's not you I'm angry with, at least I don't think," she said honestly. "Only, I tried so hard to be happy in a life where you weren't and I couldn't do it. I thought I had, but it was a lie I was telling myself. I've spent years doing nothing but trying to find a way back to you. I en't the same person at all. I've been sad and lonely and..." 

____

"And?" Will said, face impassive, waiting for her to continue. 

____

"Your smiles, they come so easy and I can't even remember the last time I smiled at all before last night. So I'm angry about that I suppose. And it makes me wonder if you were missing me as much as I been missing you, and then I'm angry with myself because I should be happy that you en't been miserable and stuck like I been. So I don't know what I'm feeling, really." 

____

He straightened. "Hear this, Lyra Silvertongue: I have missed you every day of my life. More than anyone has ever been missed," he said and her mouth turned up in a reluctant smile at the reference to his parting words with Serafina Pekkala, words that she'd played in her mind again and again since. He answered with a grin and took her hand. "I would see that always. I never want to see you unhappy ever again. I am so sorry that I have been the cause of that unhappiness." 

____

"It en't your fault, Will. We did what we had to, both of us." 

____

His face twisted in a grimace of disgust. "Seeing you, holding you in my arms again, I'm not so sure about that anymore." 

____

"Me neither. The angels could've helped us. If they could get rid of all the Specters in the world, what would be one more a decade for just our short lives? They could've but they didn't. No one would help us then, and they en't going to now. I dunno why and I don't care either. I love you Will, and I en't never going to let anyone tell me I have to live without you again.” 

____

“You will never have to. You,” he said and moved close to her again to kiss her forehead and her eyelids, “are all I have ever wanted. You are mine, forever.” 

____

“And after,” she breathed. “Even if we never figure out any more than this.” 

____

His eyes widened, then he smiled and kissed her hard. “Didn't you wonder how I possibly managed my happiness?” 

____

She had and she hadn't liked any of the possibilities she came up with. “’Course,” she said noncommittally. 

____

“It wasn't because I'd given up on you. Those first years were the worst in my life. I didn't... handle them well. I don't know what I would've done if Mary hadn't stuck by me –" 

____

“Oh, Dr. Malone! I haven't even asked about her!” 

____

Will chuckled. “She's well. And she's the best part of my story." 

____

Lyra blushed and gestured for him to continue. 

____

"I couldn't settle. I told myself to be cheerful but my anger was like a living thing under my skin straining at the leash. Mary managed to work things out for us in the end but I spent several months in an overcrowded children's home for boys, most of whom were in some sort of trouble with the law, as I was. It wasn't until after they decided it had been self-defense and not murder that I was allowed to leave and go to stay with Mary. 

____

"Then I paid her back by getting chucked from school for fighting. We were lucky to find another one that would take me and I managed to keep out of any more trouble. I stopped fighting, I did well in classes, I got a job. But I never made any friends. My mother was in a well-recommended treatment facility and I visited her, but otherwise kept to myself. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't let go of my resentment." 

____

"Oh, Will," Lyra said and reached up to cup his cheek in her hand 

____

He took it and kissed her palm. "Don't worry, it gets better. Because all that time, Mary had been continuing her research. She didn't tell me at first – she was worried to get my hopes up – but when she saw that I wasn't adjusting and I wasn't likely to, she filled me in. That's when we started working together on how I might be able to do this, come here to you. It's also when I realized that I was going to see you again and knowing that made everything much easier. She's close, Lyra, and getting closer every day." 

____

"You mean it? But how?" 

____

"No idea. I couldn't follow it if I tried. I help her at the lab as much as I can, but I'm afraid I'm not much use. We'll just have to trust her." 

____

She nodded. It was clear that Will did trust Dr. Malone and so Lyra did too. "Do you work with her then, in the lab?" 

____

"No," he said, looking a bit embarrassed. "It turns out I don't have much of a mind for physics. I work at a hospital and I'm in my last year of medical school." 

____

"That's wonderful! You will be such a wonderful doctor, Will. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it's perfect, all those people you'll be able to help." 

____

She saw a glimpse of the old Will as his eyes darkened with desire. Her throat tightened. "You say my name just the same," he said, voice low and intent. 

____

"I used to dream of you saying 'Oh, Lyra'." 

____

"Oh, Lyra." 

____

And they did very little talking for the rest of the night. 

____

 

____

~ 

____

 

____

Joy beyond joy! Will glided from his room to the kitchen in a delirious haze of happiness. He slung Kirjava onto his shoulder without noticing her weight. He poured his coffee by rote, still lost in the bliss that was Lyra. His Lyra again. He could sing; he could dance; he could slay dragons! As long as she was in his arms, so soft and willing, so responsive, he could do anything, could think of nothing else. 

____

"Oi! Will!" 

____

Will looked up just in time to see a box of cereal flying at him. He caught it easily in one hand and chucked it back at one of his flatmates, laughing in a chair at the table. "Bugger off, Ian." 

____

"Just making sure you were still with us, mate. You looked like you were about to tap dance away," Ian said. 

____

Will glowered and plunked down into his own chair, Kira curling up in his lap. "Can't a man be in a good mood in the morning?" 

____

Ian scooped a wooden spoonful of cereal from a large silver mixing bowl and shrugged. "Sure," he said, his mouth still half full. "Especially if he spent Friday night kipping off early." 

____

There was a loud yawn and they both turned to see Jamie, in nothing but a pair of y-fronts, stretch and rub his chest. "Coffee?" 

____

"In the pot." 

____

He only grunted in acknowledgment and poured himself a mug with about a pound of sugar. After a long drink, he finally seemed to know where he was and looked over at Will. "Where were you last night?" 

____

"Having a bit of a lie-in," Ian said with mock sympathy. 

____

Will smirked. "True, but I had company. How well did you two do last night?" 

____

Jamie choked on his coffee and Ian dropped his spoon, not even noticing that it was now floating half submerged in milk. 

____

Then Ian said, "Come off it. You?" 

____

"Best night of my life," Will said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head. And it had been. Every moment with Lyra was the best of his life. He couldn't resist letting his friends think that more had happened than actually had. They would never be able to understand anyway that a touch, a kiss, even – especially – a shy glance up at him from Lyra was better than any sex he'd ever had. 

____

Jamie clapped Will on the shoulder, knocking him forward. "Who's the girl?" 

____

"Yeah, who finally tempted the cock of St. Jude?" 

____

St. Jude – patron saint of lost causes. The girls at Oxford Med had started calling Will that after he continued to turn each of them down but didn't show any interest in men either and the nickname had stuck. Then spread. Will could care less. 

____

"A miracle," he said, telling nothing but the truth. Kira purred loudly and butted her head against his stomach. 

____

Both of his friends burst out laughing. 

____

"Whatever you say, mate," Ian said between breaths. "At least one of us had some luck." 

____

"Two of us. Jeremy never came home," Jamie said. 

____

Ian grunted. "Yeah, yeah. I need food," he said. Apparently, a bowl of cereal large enough to feed Andre the Giant wasn't sufficient. 

____

"Greasy food," Jamie agreed. "You in, Will?" 

____

Will shook his head. "No, I'm going to the lab today." 

____

It was a common response. His flatmates just shrugged and went off in search of food that would soak up the alcohol of the night before. 

____

 

____

~ 

____

 

____

An hour later, Will let himself into Mary's lab. She was bent over a spread of papers, her pencil scratching away and her dæmon perched on her shoulder staring at the wall. Will was familiar with the scene. It meant that she was deep in a thinking zone and it was best not to interrupt her. While he waited, he went over to the little kitchenette tucked into a side room. 

____

As expected, it was a mess. He unloaded the dishwasher and refilled it with the dishes piled up in the sink, threw the old tea bags tossed carelessly about into the bin, and wiped off the countertops. Then he opened the refrigerator and discarded everything that was expired or smelled like it had gone off. He did all of this with an unnecessary amount of dish clanging and cabinet closing and eventually, he heard Mary call: "Will, is that you?" 

____

Then she appeared in the doorway and smiled. "Thank you," she said, hugging him and taking in the freshly tidied space. 

____

"You've got more on your mind than tea bags." 

____

"So do you," she said and he followed her back out into the lab. "Clinicals still going well?" 

____

Will nodded. "Same as ever. How are things going here?" 

____

Mary clicked her tongue and gave him a knowing look. "How's Lyra?" 

____

Without an ounce of embarrassment, Will beamed. "Perfect." 

____

"Perfect, huh?" 

____

"Well, she's perfect to me," Will amended. "She's been through a lot, you can tell, but she is still undeniably, irrevocably Lyra. 

____

"You know I was worried that I'd made an epic love out of a childhood crush over all these years and we wouldn't feel the same now that we're both old enough to actually understand our feelings. But it didn't matter how young we were. I knew it then and I know it now. She's it for me. If anything has changed, it's that I love her more. It's making me a little crazy, I think." 

____

"You don't think, you know," Kira added and leapt soundlessly onto one of the lab tables in a movement as smooth as mercury. 

____

Mary laughed out loud and clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I really am happy for you both. It's just that, well, love will do that to a person." 

____

Pushing his fingers through his hair, Will smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I know. It's just so incredible. I would give anything, _do _anything just to be near her. The whole world can call me St. Jude all they want, because I know without a doubt that I will wait for her forever."__

______ _ _

"I think I can do better than forever," Mary said and gestured him toward the table where she'd been working. "I'm glad you're here, actually. I think I've found a conduit, but I've got no way to make it. Here's what I've tried so far and none have the properties needed to withstand the process." 

______ _ _

Will frowned and looked at the notes she indicated, but they meant nothing to him. "I don't understand. Are you saying you can't do it then?" 

______ _ _

"I can't yet – " She opened a cabinet above the table and stood on her toes, stretching toward a small velvet box on a high shelf, "but – Blast! How did I even get that up there in the first place?" 

______ _ _

Nudging her gently aside, Will easily grabbed the soft black box and handed it to her. She took it and started fussing with her notes, pushing one aside, picking up another and rejecting it. 

______ _ _

"But?" Will prompted. 

______ _ _

"Oh, right. But, I have a theory." She was tutting to herself and biting her lip as she rifled through a notebook. She tossed it and grabbed a different one. "Ah! Here it is." 

______ _ _

She laid the notebook open flat and set the box next to it. When she lifted the lid with careful fingers, he was surprised to see the shards of his knife laying on the white silk inside. The last time he'd seen them he had placed the shards carefully back in the leather sheath and strapped the rosewood handle in place. Then, battling a desire to fall to his knees and weep, he'd given it to Mary and asked her if she would look after it. It had been too tempting and too painful to keep it with him. 

______ _ _

"My knife."

______ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Please, please leave your comments. Without them, I don't know if you are enjoying the story or not and if it isn't garnering interest, then I need to make some changes. But, if you are liking it, then I know I'm on the right track. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! For now, I will still be posting a new one each weekend.


	5. An Impossible Task

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you are finished with this chapter, I would very much appreciate any comments that you may have, both good and bad. Feedback is how we improve. Thanks for reading!

It wasn't until Mary tucked his hair behind his ear and gently squeezed his shoulder that Will realized tears had collected in his eyes. He wiped them quickly away with the back of his hand and cleared his throat. 

"Where's the rest of it?" he asked. 

"At my flat, safe. But I wanted to study the blade itself. I hope that's okay?" 

Of course it was. It was just the sight of it...Will didn't know why it was filling him with such a sense of grief, like a void opening, like someone had died – why it made him want to snatch the box jealousy away and storm to Mary's flat and unite it with the missing pieces. 

"Will?" 

He inhaled sharply and forced his eyes away from the precious dull-looking metal. "I'm sorry, of course it is. What has it got to do with anything?" 

Mary closed the lid, setting the box to one side and Will couldn't keep his eyes from tracking it briefly. "Well, I can't find a single element or combination of elements in this world that could have made it. Or anything like it for that matter. 

"Which got me thinking. One of the hands of Lyra's alethiometer, the one she couldn't set, was made of a similar metal. Given the way you used the knife and she used the alethiometer, I think it is a certainty that they are, in fact, the same metal. And neither was made here." 

"Yes, I agree," Will said, following so far but not sure where she was going. 

"I think this alloy is what I need to make the conduit. Or at least, have it made for me. I haven't been able to find them, I don't think we have anything here that is capable of it, but whatever this alloy is, it has very unique and special properties. Just like the Shadows are elementary particles, but so much more, I think this alloy, while still a metal is also much more." 

It might be an answer to the puzzle but Will didn't see how it was an answer to the problem. "But, you said it doesn't exist here." 

Her leather office chair rolled back several inches as she collapsed into it, her head in her hands. "I know." 

"So, what now? That's not it, is it? Because you just made me feel like there was a chance. You do have a plan, don't you?" Will asked and levered himself up on the table, leaning back. 

She nodded and pulled her pulled her hair back, tying it up in an elastic. "I do, but it's going to depend largely on you and Lyra, if it is even possible. It might not be. I don't know, Will, it's probably crazy, but it's all I can think of. And if we're being honest, our idea of crazy and impossible isn't exactly what it used to be. Maybe that's no good. Maybe it's made me believe I can do anything, that nothing is impossible, it's just a matter of being able to sort it out. But some things just are not doable, right? Or...oh, never mind. If I crawl down that rabbit hole, I'll never get out – " 

"Mary, why don't you start with just telling me your idea?" 

"Right, of course," she said. "We need a way for you and Lyra to pass physical objects between you. She can get the alloy from her world and you can bring it to me in this one." 

Will deflated. "I can't even get to her unless she's asleep. I don't really get it – I know you've tried to explain it, please don't try again – but I can't reach her unless her subconscious is that unguarded. It's not even real, it's some sort of half-state between reality and dreaming. How on earth are we going to be able to do that?" 

"I don't know, but it must be able to be done. When you cut her, her sleeping body bleeds. The mark is still there in her waking state. If you can transfer that sort of physical process, there must be a way to transfer others. It's a start, at least." 

Thinking of all the time it had taken for him just to get that far, Will wasn't sure how much of a start it really was. "It is. And, like you said, stranger things have happened," he agreed anyway. 

 

~ 

 

That night Will learned two things that all of his education had not prepared him for. The first was that in less than twenty-four hours, Lyra had grown even more beautiful. The second was the astounding amount of feelings that a person could feel at one time. As he relayed what Mary had told him, Lyra had sat very still and listened all the way through without interrupting, her expression unreadable. It was so unusual he had begun to feel a little uncomfortable but he'd pushed on, careful to leave nothing out. 

Now, she was sitting with her legs tucked up under her on the furs before him, the light from the fire in the hearth flickering over one side of her face, making one blue eye sparkle, and casting the other in shadow. He wished she would say something, say anything. Because he was full to bursting with all of the conflicting hopes and fears and doubts and desires fighting to break out or implode and kill him. He hadn't realized until he'd started explaining it how much he needed her to believe that the task wasn't beyond them. 

"Will," she said slowly, smoothing her dress over her knees. "The alloy – it's all gone. It's why they can't make more alethiometers." 

Will's heart dropped, his mind raced. There was another answer, there had to be. That couldn't just be it. Then he clenched his fists, returning to a familiar and far more productive mental state. Yes, he was frightened. Yes, this was not what he wanted to hear. He took a breath. "How do you know that?" 

Lyra's brows pulled together. "I think Dame Hannah told me, years ago." 

"And how does she know?" 

Her eyes widened and he recognized the look, the realization that she had never questioned the idea that the woman she had turned to for answers might not always know everything. "I don't know," she admitted. "I never asked her." 

"Then I am going to work with the assumption that it is possible she was misinformed. I don't know how we will get the alloy to Mary and I will keep trying to figure that out, but it won't matter if we never find it – if you never find it, I suppose." 

She nodded. "Okay then. Okay, I will find it." 

Something inside Will gave way. He took her face in his hands, kissing her hard then held her tight to him and buried his face in her hair to breath in the warm, honey fragrance of it. "Thank you. I'm sorry that it will have to be you, but you won't be alone. I promise, I will help you. I will be there every night to help you any way I can." 

"I know you will," she said. 

Her arms had come around him and she ran her slender fingers up and down his back and shoulders. It felt so good he thought he could melt into it forever. He relaxed his hold some, but she stayed close, continuing to stroke him in a steady rhythm. He wanted to tell her that he would never give up, that he would make it work, that he would spend every moment making her happy, but the only words he could find were, "I love you." 

 

~ 

 

Half covered in twisting ivy and nestled in a copse of trees near the eastern border of St, Sophia's College, was a beautiful house of grey stone. Inside, Dame Hannah Relf sat at her study desk, staring at an acorn. It was not an ordinary acorn, of course. If she turned it clockwise, it would open up and she would find a message inside. She hadn't seen it's like in many, many years. 

Her marmoset dæmon, Jesper was perched on the back of her winged chair, staring at the acorn too. She picked it up, rolled it between her palms, set it carefully down again. 

"Are you going to open it?" Jesper asked. 

"Yes, I imagine I will, so I should probably get on with it. But I admit, Jesper, I am afraid of what it means." 

"It'll be because of the church." 

She nodded. "Father Carrol is recruiting followers at an alarming rate. His influence makes me uneasy. Though, the matter must be much more serious than I thought for us to be brought into it again." 

"It is more than that," Jesper said. "You should just ask." 

He was right, of course. It would be the easiest course. But the answer to the question that was plaguing her now, that she did not even dare to speak aloud, was even more frightening that the contents of the acorn. After another moment's hesitation, she reached into her desk and pulled out a worn rosewood box, the faded coat of arms painted on the lid almost entirely gone by now. Inside, on a bed of maroon velvet, was her alethiometer, beautiful in its simplicity. It came into her hands like a like a lover, like a best friend. 

She had given her books to Lyra, as a loan, she'd said, but she had never had any intention of taking them back. She was not a young woman. In fact, she was rather an old woman and she had seen that given time the child's talent with the instrument would far surpass her own. With those books, a girl such as her could do great things, greater even than what she had done before. Over the years, Hannah had collected more for herself, not as detailed as the ones they had replaced, but she did not need them for this. 

Her mind drifted into that lovely feeling of relaxed attention and she turned the hands one at a time to form her question: _Is the child involved?_

It answered: _Yes._

_Does the church know?_

_Yes._

_Are they looking for her now?_

Again, it said: _Yes._

_What is her role to be?_

_That is yet to be determined._

_Where is she now?_

_In the north._

Hannah blinked, coming back to herself. Her chest was tight with worry and indignation. It was the answer she had expected but oh, the injustice of it all! 

Carefully, she restored the alethiometer to its place in the box and placed it back in her desk. Then she picked up the acorn, twisted it to the right, and unfolded the little square of paper within. It took her less than a second to read - the message itself was only five words - but she stared at the paper for a long time. 

"What does it say?" Jesper asked. 

Hannah refolded the note then flicked it into the fire. "It begins again. Oakley Street."


	6. Out the Window

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those of you have left comments. I'd like to throw a particular shout out to BellaGracie for her support and thoughtful feedback. If you're a fan of Game of Thrones, she's got some great fics that you should check out! 
> 
> And now, without further ado, I am proud to present Chapter 6!

When they arrived in Trollesund, Lyra and Pan wasted no time in making their way to the little green house by the sea. She felt a sharp pang when she saw it, like witch oil sparking in her heart, for this was the place she had first heard the great prophecy which had disrupted so much. 

Before she could even ring the bell, the door opened, revealing the graceful form of a woman who was young, but somehow distinctly not so, with fair hair and a crown of little red flowers. "Lyra Silvertongue," she said with a voice like music and held her arms out. 

"Serafina Pekkala!" Lyra exclaimed and threw herself into the witch's embrace. "I was just coming here to see if Dr. Lanselius could get you a message. What're you doing here?" 

Serafina laughed and stepped back. "Come inside and I will tell you." 

"Where is Kaisa?" Pantalaimon asked from where he was hidden by the thick fur of her hood. 

"He is taking care of another matter." 

This did not register as unusual to Lyra. The witches were often occupied by affairs far beyond the goings on of the human world. Pan didn't seem to agree with her though. His agitated whiskers were twitching against her neck. 

"She doesn't want to tell us," he whispered in her ear. 

Lyra couldn't answer without Serafina Pekkala hearing her, so she shrugged the shoulder Pan's paws were gripping and followed her inside. The ample Dr. Lanselius and his serpent dæmon were in the parlor, looking not at all surprised to see her. He rose when she and Serafina Pekkala entered the room and extended a hand. Lyra took it in a firm shake and they all took their seats. 

"It is wonderful to see you again after so many years, Lyra. I would never have recognized you," he said warmly, but there was something in his eyes that told Lyra he was only being polite and he would have recognized her anywhere. 

She thought it was best to be polite too and said, "Too many years. I am pleased to see you again as well, and looking so well." 

He looked at Serafina Pekkala and said, "Can this young lady really be the little girl who could hardly keep still and tried to get your spray of cloud-pine to fly for her or are you two playing a trick on me?" 

Lyra blushed and Serafina smiled. "It is no trick Dr. Lanselius. She is grown, but our Lyra still." 

"Well then, what is it that returns you to my door, Lyra?" 

Pan's claws worked at her furs and she had to agree with him now. "Maybe you outta be telling me. Seems it was you what was expecting me." 

"I did hope that you would come here," Serafina put in, "because it was my intention to join you on Svalbard before I learned that you had already taken ship." 

"But why?" 

"On the word of your mentor, Dame Hannah Relf," Dr. Lanselius said. "She wrote to me of some rather troubling news and I sent word to Serafina Pekkala at once." 

"Dame Hannah?" Lyra asked, honestly baffled. "What's she got to do with anything?" Lyra thought of her teacher, her friend, a brilliant mind, but an academic. She rarely even left Oxford. What business could she possibly have with northern witches? 

"Nothing but her concern for you. As I am sure you are not unaware, she consults the alethiometer to look in on your well-being. During her most recent consultation, she learned that the church's power is rising and they once again seek you out. She believes it to be in conjunction with your pursuits of the last several years." Dr. Lanselius noted her concern and reading it rightly, said, "No, she has not disclosed what those pursuits may be, but she did suggest that you share with Serafina Pekkala, which I why I sent for her." 

Well, that had been her plan all along so Lyra only nodded. Before arriving at Svalbard she'd been traveling for weeks and hadn't heard much gossip regarding the church, but after her words with Iorek and the attack of the cliff-ghasts, she wasn't surprised by Dame Hannah's news. It didn't change her plans, but it was very good to know that she would have to be more careful and to have a clearer idea of where the danger was coming from. 

Then an unsettling thought occurred to Lyra. "She en't in any danger is she?" 

"No," Dr. Lanselius said, "not that I am aware of." 

"Good," Lyra said, exhaling the sudden rush of fear that had come on her. "Is there anything else?" 

"Might I ask what it is you plan to do from here? Will you return to Svalbard?" 

"No. I got – I got other things to do. I sent my things on to the inn, 'cause I thought I'd have to wait awhile for you, Serafina, but now I guess not. I suppose I oughta find a ship that'll give me passage." 

"I will go with you to the inn and we can talk. Then we will see about your ship," Serafina Pekkala said. 

They bade Dr. Lanselius farewell and made their way to Lyra's modest room at The Narwhal. Serafina Pekkala Pekkala took a seat in the little chair by the writing desk and Lyra perched on the edge of the bed with Pantalaimon on her lap. 

"Now, Lyra, why have you sought me out? Have you discovered anything new?" 

"I have. You know I'd been all over and I hadn't found anything and that's why I came back here. 'Cause if my father, who did so much, thought the north was important then I thought it might make a difference." 

"And has it?" 

Lyra couldn't help it. Color rushed to her cheeks and she looked down at her hands, which were running distractedly through Pan's rich fur. Somehow, telling the witch queen about Will felt terribly embarrassing and yet she was bursting to do just that. "You'd believe me, right? Even if what I told you seemed mad?" 

Serafina Pekkala's serene face showed just a hint of puzzlement. "Of course. Have I not always done so?" 

"Yes, it's only, I can hardly believe it myself. All this time I been trying to find a way to get back to Will, but it was him found his way to me," Lyra said and smiled just at the thought of it. 

"He's found a way to cross between the world again? How?" The witch was amazed, and frightened, thinking of the vast consequences the residents of every world had suffered when the barrier between the worlds had been breached in the past. 

"Not really," Lyra conceded. "It's more like what Dr. Gruman could do, like a projection of himself, only not. And it only works when I'm asleep. But I swear it en't a dream," she said and held out her hand as proof. The cut was nearly healed but still visible. "He did this on the first night, because I didn't believe him and I thought it was the cruelest, most unfair dream I'd ever had. He was there somehow though, and he has been every night since. I can see him, and smell him, and...and touch him." 

Lyra turned redder than ever at that and Serafina Pekkala raised an eyebrow, but she was smiling when she said,"You love him still." 

"Oh, yes," Lyra breathed. "There en't words. He's ever so handsome and strong and kind. It's like all my life I lived in the far north during winter and I never knew what real daylight was until he held me in his arms again and I was thrust into the sun. It's like that, and more." Pan made a disgruntled noise and Lyra instantly felt guilty. "Whatever he's doing though, it doesn't work for our dæmons; they just sleep through it all. That's the only bad thing about it." 

"That is not the only bad thing about it," Pan argued. "Unless you think only being able to see him while you're unconscious is a good thing." 

"I think it's better than not being able to see him at all. And anyway, it's not forever." 

"What do you mean by that?" Serafina Pekkala interrupted. 

With a final scowl for Pantalaimon, Lyra refocused her attention. "That's why I left Svalbard. Dr. Malone, you remember Dr. Malone, she's been trying to figure out a way to physically cross between worlds and she thinks she knows how. But she needs the alloy that made the alethiometer and Will's knife to do it. So I've got to find it and then me and Will'll have to figure out a way to pass it between us." 

"Is that possible?" 

"I dunno. 'Cause Dame Hannah said the alloy's all gone and how can you exchange something real in a dream? I'm going to try though. And I'm hoping that you'll help me." 

"I – " but Serafina Pekkala cut herself off. She sat up very straight in her chair and her eyes darted around the room. "Lyra, it is time for us to be going. I don't see another door, so it will have to be out the window. 

"What?" Lyra said, standing as Serafina did. 

"Now, Lyra. We must leave now," Serafina said and began ushering Lyra toward the window. 

"Wait!" Lyra reached out to snatch up her rucksack and tried to turn back but Serafina did not step aside for her. "Wait, I need my books." 

Serafina looked anxiously at the door then said, "Quickly." 

Lyra dashed to the trunk in the corner of the room and threw the lid back. There was a bedroll in a canvas sack. She upended the sack, shaking it empty then shoved every book and her notes inside, cinched the drawstring and hoisted it over her shoulder with a grunt. Serafina was at the window already and had it open for her. Saying a silent apology to her books, she leaned out over the sill and dropped them as gently as she possibly could. They were only on the first floor, it wasn't terribly far down, but she imagined their spines splitting and their pages tearing. 

She straightened again and looked around for Pan. "Come on, Pan." He raced across the bed and leapt onto her shoulder. Holding the window frame for support, she pulled her legs up and out until she was sitting on the sill. She closed her eyes, exhaled her fear and jumped. The air rushed up around her and her stomach dropped. Then her feet hit the packed snow and she immediately let herself fall on her side, letting the padding of her furs take as much of the impact as she could. It worked. She stood, perfectly unharmed. 

Pan, who had tumbled just about a foot away from her, shook the snow from his coat and hissed, "Hurry, the books." 

She grabbed the heavy bundle up in both arms. Then she heard shouting and looked up. Serafina Pekkala was on her cloud pine with an arrow nocked. Lyra followed its intended path to the window she had just vacated where a man now stood with a pistol aimed at her, but his focus on the witch. There were more men in the room behind him (Lyra could hear them even if she couldn't see them). 

"Go now and I will come to you later," Serafina Pekkala said, without ever looking away from the man and his gun. 

Lyra didn't hesitate for a moment. Pan jumped back up to her shoulder and they were off into the half-darkness. The man twitched but didn't dare fire with the threat of an arrow to his eye hovering so near. It didn't even occur to Lyra to worry for Serafina Pekkala. She and her and her hundreds of years of experience where more than a match for whoever was in that room. Lyra, however, was not, so she ran as fast as she could toward the quayside. 

Visions of church conscripted soldiers swarming the ships like unwanted rats, prying open crates and pushing their way into cabins filled her so completely that she ducked into an alley and slumped down by a rubbish barrel, hugging her books and her knees close. This felt so like the last time. So many people she loved had died. And so many others she did not even know. She'd known this was coming, but it had felt very different on the remote cliffs of Svalbard. 

"Should I go ahead and check?" Pan whispered. 

Her heart lurched at the very thought and she felt sick. They could separate, that was true, but they didn't. In the first place, there hadn't been any need to and in the second, it would be very unsettling for other people who did no what had passed between them to allow such a thing. This, however, might be the time. "All right," she said. "But come back quick." 

Every minute that he was gone, her anxiety rose. She was an adult woman but she felt less brave than when she had been a child at Iofur Racknison's palace because she was alone – really, truly alone as she never had been in her life before. And she thought of Will, poor Will, who had spent so much of his life in just this way. And then she was ashamed of her fear. 

Pan would be back soon and they would have to decide what to do, together. But for now, while he was working for them, she could be too. If the news he brought was bad, what options did they have? Everything she could think of required a ship...or a sledge, but even if she stole one, she couldn't manage the dogs. Serafina Pekkala would find her, of course. By now though, the enemy, whoever they turned out to be, would know that she was helping Lyra and that meant she wouldn't be able to get them a ship an easier. The same was true for Dr. Lanselius. 

Then she could've shaken herself for her own stupidity. Her mastery of the alethiometer was not what it had been, but it was better than most, possibly better than anyone in the world. She did not need the books for something like this. 

She was just setting the wheels when she felt the return of her dear, her beloved one. Her head snapped up and she saw him and then he was in her arms and they were clinging together. 

"Oh Pan, thank you for going to look. Thank you for doing that." 

"It's safe, Lyra, I think it's safe. I didn't see anything. But maybe we should wait for Serafina Pekkala anyway, just in case." 

That was very much what Lyra wanted to do but then she caught the reek of the rubbish in the dirty barrel she was leaning against and the putrid mud and brown slush of the alley she was cowering in and knew she could not. If Pan had not seen any danger, then they would continue on as if there was none. It could very well be that the men in the hotel were the only ones here. They may have been sent to wait and kill her when she left Svalbard, if she came this way. And if they were it, they were probably all dead now. 

She could still check the alethiometer to make sure. "Let me ask," she said. 

For the answers to be quick and easy to read, her questions would have to be as simple and as generic as possible. So, she took just one moment to prepare them and, with Pan keeping watch, sunk easily into a state of calm concentration. A short while later, she came out of her trance. As ever, she felt as though she had more questions now than answers, but she could do nothing about that now. 

"It says there's more men," she told Pan, "but not many and they en't on the ships. They told some of the ships to be looking for us, though, so we need to find one that's not been here long." 

"What about Serafina Pekkala?" 

"She'll find us, like she said. But let's go now. I want to get out of this horrid town."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 will be up next weekend, as scheduled. Comments are always appreciated. Thanks!


	7. A Bit of the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the last post, I've been busy with family in town. The next chapter will be up over the weekend as usual. Thank you for reading and, as always, your comments are always appreciated!

Will slammed his fist into his locker, again, again until the cold-rolled steel had turned his knuckles a screaming, swollen red. He couldn't take another moment of patients, whining about their stubbed toes and their fish and chip clogged arteries and the blood sugar they could lower themselves if they just got off the couch. Most of the time he was eager to help, was proud of his aptitude for healing those in need, but today they just seemed weak. 

"It's not your fault you know," Kirjava said, peering at him from her perch on the narrow bench between locker rows, her tail flicking lazily from side to side. 

He slumped back against the locker, panting, and closed his eyes. "Right." 

To his right, he heard a door open and footsteps approach. He didn't even bother to acknowledge whoever had come in the room. 

"What the hell?" It was Jaime; they were on the same rotation schedule. 

Will turned to face him, still propped on one shoulder against the locker. "Leave it alone," he said, a deadly calm in his voice that he hadn't heard in a very long time. 

It seemed Jaime hadn't registered the warning because he pressed, "You just walked out of rounds." 

"So did you." 

"Yeah, to bring you back. Dr. Porter is going to kill you once he gets over the shock." 

Will straightened and squared his stance. "It's nothing." 

"It is not nothing. You've been distracted all week and now this." Jamie gestured between Will's hand and the locker. "You're going to get yourself kicked out of the program right before we finish if you keep it up." 

"He's not wrong," Kira put in. Will didn't even look her way. It had been difficult, at first, not to react to her in public, but as no one else but he and Mary could see her, he'd had to master it. It looked very odd otherwise, him smiling or scowling or even talking to nothing. 

And anyway, just now he didn't want to listen to her. His heart was thumping with rage. "That's my business, not yours." 

"The hell it isn't! We've been in this together since day one. Do you really think I'm just going to let you piss that away? And you're my friend. So, what the hell is going on with you?" 

Friend. They were friends. Will deflated. "I can't tell you." Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but Will said, "I would if I could, but I can't." 

"It's the girl, isn't it?" 

Will didn't say anything, but his silence said enough. 

"Who is she? I'm not an idiot, mate. I know you didn't just meet her. You've got history, messed up history if I judge it right." 

Not for the first time, Will felt himself wanting to share the whole story. Even with the near constant companionship of Kirjava, which still filled his heart with a profound joy, it was such a lot to know, to have done. Perhaps, if it was still in the past, he and Mary could reminisce, or regret or relive over an occasional pint and be satisfied. But it wasn't in the past. It was every spare moment he could find and it was more real now that it had been in a decade. And he had never felt more impotent in his life. 

He couldn't share everything, but he could share some, he thought. "She – she's unlike any other woman in this world. And you're right. Things have been complicated between us for a long time." 

Kira leapt silently down from the bench to wind her sinuous form between his ankles and he instantly felt better. 

Before he answered, Jamie reached into his own locker, grabbed an apple and took a large bite, chewing thoughtfully. Then he said, "I hear you, mate, really I do, but you can't throw away everything you've worked for over a woman. I know how it can feel, but I promise you there will always be more." 

Will could have laughed out loud. If the tables were turned, that was the same advice he himself would give, after all. It simply did not apply where Lyra was concerned, as was the case with so many things. There was nothing he would not give up to be with her. He'd chosen life without her before, because he thought he'd had no choice, and he would never make that mistake again. He did not like ultimatums. 

"I can't tell you more, because a lot of it isn't only my story to tell, but if we don't do more than study and work and focus on the future, our stories won't be enough in the end. And living that way just isn't good enough for me. There is more to life than a white coat. She is worth more. 

"Now she's in trouble and I can do nothing to help her. I'm stuck here going about my days as if everything is the same. So, I don't give a fuck about Dr. Porter." 

Jamie was just staring at him. For all that they were friends, that was probably the most personal information that Will had shared in all the years they had known each other. Suddenly, Will didn't want to know what his friend thought of what he'd just said. 

"I'm leaving. Tell them whatever you want," he said and brushed past Jaime and out of the locker room, Kirjava trotting beside him. 

Once they were off the major streets Kirjava said, "Are you sure you should have just done that?" 

"What? Walk out or run my stupid mouth?" 

"Both." 

"Of course not," he said. "I'm not sure about anything. All I can think of is where she is, what she's doing, if she's safe." 

Kirjava voiced a little chirping mew and he swept her up on to his shoulder where she draped herself around his neck. "She's with Serafina Pekkala." 

"She was with a whole troop of witches when Mrs. Coulter took her." 

The day felt too bright, the sun too hot. He felt too exposed, walking through the city, but exposed to what he wasn't sure. It was just old instincts he supposed. He wanted to go home, but home was a house full of two other medical students whom Jamie had no doubt told about what Will had just done. He wouldn't mention the reason, Will was certain of that, but surviving med school was a team sport and he would have recruited help to keep Will on track. 

For lack of anywhere else, he started toward the lab. "If it is the church that's after her, they won't take any chances this time. They'll kill her the second they get a chance. All it will take is one lucky shot. She, or Serafina Pekkala, might never see it coming." 

"None of that is your fault," Kira said again. 

"Oh no? It's just coincidence then, that they only started hunting her down once I finally started getting through? If I had just let her go, if I had just been strong enough to do that then maybe she would have given up, eventually, and there would be no reason for anyone to hurt her. She would be safe." 

A pair of women in pastel pantsuits were coming their way on the sidewalk, effectively putting the conversation on hold. Will shoved his hands into his scrub pockets and called on his oldest and most dependable talent. As they passed by, neither woman so much as paused in their conversation. 

Kira said, "Or you aren't a lodestone of culpability. Lyra has been a part of this for far longer than she ever knew. She thought that if she'd never gone into the retiring room, none of it would have ever happened. But that would only have delayed things. In the end, even she knew that. It was bigger than her, and it's bigger than you too." 

Will halted, thinking hard. Was the same true if he'd never seen the cat who looked like Moxie jump through the window by the hornbeam trees? Maybe he would have found the window another way. Or maybe he would never have known anything about it and he would have gone to jail because he never would have had Mary to help him. Or another hundred other things could have happened. 

But thinking of the cat who'd thrown herself in front of the golden monkey, he thought of the birds that had come to Lyra's defense in her Oxford. Dust was conscious, that much he knew, and all human beings were part Dust. Were animals too? Was Dust directing these helpful animals the way people did with dogs or horses? 

His train of thought was interrupted when he reached Mary's building. There was no porter or security here. He simply took a card from his wallet, held it up to a reader, and opened the door when the reader light turned green. 

When the elevator doors closed he said to Kirjava, "Either way, our paths brought us together and we helped each other. We, neither of us, could have done it alone. Now, she has to do it alone. I can’t stand it." 

Since Lyra had told him of her escape from Trollesund, he'd been ridden hard by worry. It was all he could do to go through the most basic motions and not lock himself in his room and dissolve in his own anxiety. Every night, his heart seized with terror that when he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to find her because she was beyond his reach in the land of the dead and it didn't ease until she was in his arms again. 

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, the doors opened, and Will stepped out into the hall. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure he actually wanted to be. He couldn't seem to decide if he wanted company or if he wanted to be alone. 

"Being alone won't help anything," Kira said. 

She was right, as usual. So, he walked beneath the harsh fluorescent lights that seemed to be a universal feature of all such office buildings and let himself into the lab. At first, he thought it was empty, but then he saw Mary sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, her hands palm up on her knees, eyes closed, her Alpine chough dæmon just as still and silent beside her. Will couldn't always see him, it wasn't a skill he practiced often. Mary reveled at seeing everyone's demons, but Will found it distracting and it always made him feel a bit guilty. His heightened emotions and the comfort this lab gave him must have made him more perceptive today though. 

Before her was a bundle of yarrow stalks on a silk scarf. Not wanting to interrupt, Will closed the door very carefully and lowered himself onto a chair to watch. She inhaled through her nose, her chest rising, then exhaled deeply out her mouth. Her eyes opened slowly, looking slightly glazed and Will knew that her mind was far away from this room. In a steady and unhurried rhythm that reminded Will so much of Lyra bent over her alethiometer his heart twisted, she divided the sticks, counted, divided again, counted, until she had the numbers for the hexagram. 

When she shook her head, leaving the trance, Will cleared his throat. Her head snapped in his direction and her hand flew to her heart. "Will," she gasped, slumping in relief. "My God, you scared me half to death." 

"I'm sorry," he said, laughing, "I didn't want to distract you. What are you doing with the I Ching anyway? I haven't seen you do that in years." 

She gathered the yarrow stalks, securing them with a twist of hemp and set the bundle to one side. Then she reached for the _Book of Changes_ and started to thumb through the pages. "I consult it from time to time. Now hush, you, and let me finish," she said. Her dæmon flew to her shoulder, peering down at the text along with her. 

Will settled back in the chair and Kirjava curled up in his lap, pretending to nap. He watched her turn to this page and that, her brow furrowing as she deciphered the _Book's_ obscure messages. When she finished, she was frowning. 

"Bad news?" Will asked. 

She sighed, gathering up the I Ching and stalks and walking to her desk to put them in the drawer. "No. More like no news at all." 

"What were you asking?" 

"I still haven't been able to get the Cave to do anything more than flicker. I was hoping the I Ching might tell me something to help. But it only told me sometimes we want things we are not yet ready to have. That was the gist of it anyway." 

As soon as she'd managed to get funding, Mary had started to rebuild the cave. She had destroyed the original hardware and anything that described how it had been built or how it was used, of course, so she'd had to work from memory. There were a surprising amount of things she'd had to spend a frustrating amount of time refiguring. By now though, she was sure she had recreated it nearly perfectly but still, it would show her nothing. Will had shared Lyra's struggles with the alethiometer and they had agreed that there was definitely a correlation. 

"Aren't you supposed to be on rotation?" Mary asked, finally realizing how odd it was for Will to be there. 

Kira opened a lazy eye to peer up at him and he crossed his arms over his chest. He contemplated telling Mary that he didn't want to talk about it. Then he said, "I might have lost my temper..."


	8. Three Boats Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone who has commented. I am really excited about the direction this story is going and what's still to come. If you're excited too, please spread the word!

Lyra's luck did not hold as they neared the shores of Colby water. Serafina Pekkala had flown ahead and reported to Lyra that every ship was being searched. Kaisa had returned and flown with her but was gone again. Pan was right in sensing that there was something the witch and her dæmon were keeping from them, Lyra was sure of it now. But she thought that Serafina must have her reasons and would tell her when the time was right. For now, they needed to figure out how they were going to get off the ship without being discovered. This captain had no reason to shield her and would no doubt hand her over the moment they docked.

"I'll have to take one of the lifeboats and row it down the shore," Lyra said to Serafina Pekkala. "I can't think of any other way but swimming." 

They were standing at the ship railing, looking out over the water. Land wasn't in sight yet, but it would be soon. She shivered at the thought of the cold ocean and knew that even if she tried, she wasn't a strong enough swimmer to manage it. But if they didn't do something now, it would be too late. 

Serafina Pekkala said, "Then I shall secure one for you. Wait here until I return."

And even though Lyra knew what would happen, as Serafina walked along the deck, Lyra suddenly lost track of her, like she had just disappeared into the misty air. It was odd, to know that she was there and just not be able to see her. Not for the first time, Lyra wished she possessed that particular talent as well. 

It didn't take long for Serafina Pekkala to retrieve Lyra. They walked together, chatting amiably and no one paid them any mind as they came to a halt at the far end of the ship. Serafina had lowered a lifeboat just far enough not to be seen from the deck. She helped Lyra down into the boat, Pan scaling the winch and slinking down the ropes to join her. 

"Now Lyra, I will lower you the rest of the way down and then you must make for the shore as quickly as you can. I will meet you there," Serafina said.

Lyra nodded, looking up at her. "Thank you."

Then Lyra and Pan sat in the very center of the boat, staying as still as they could as it lurched, swaying, and started its descent. She could smell the brine where the sea kicked and roiled around the hull. With the ship still moving, this landing would be treacherous and Lyra wondered how they would keep from being dashed against the hull along with it. The oars were already set in the oarlocks. She took them up, ready to row away with all her strength.

The moment the boat touched the water, Serafina pulled the release levers, freeing it from the ropes. Lyra plunged the oars into the stirring sea and hauled back, groaning as her arms and shoulders protested. The resistance was enormous as Lyra lifted the oars, and plunged them back in again and again, panting with the effort, and she couldn't be sure she had even made any progress at all. But she didn't stop and eventually, the resistance lessened. She dared to break her focus to look up. The ship was in front of her, drawing away. 

Lyra drew the oars in, crossing the shafts over the floor of the boat and collapsed forward, drawing in tight breaths until they came easier, filling her burning lungs. Pan was fussing, darting anxiously from the thwart to the gunwale and back, but he gave her the space to catch her breath. They couldn't stay like this for long. It was likely that someone had seen her, or would before she could get out of range, and once those searching the ships discovered that, they would piece it together and come for her. She had to be enough ahead of them by then. So, she took one more deep breath and kept  
rowing.

When they reached the empty brown shore of the estuary a good distance from the docks, Lyra jumped out onto the soggy sand, her shoes sinking, with Pan in her arms. He flowed up to drape himself around her neck, freeing her hands so she could shove the boat back into the water, hopefully disguising her location for just a little longer. As it floated away, she struggled toward the pipes and bulging coal smoke of the refineries of Colby. 

Just as she slid between the bricks of two tall buildings, black with coal soot, Serafina Pekkala  
landed soundlessly beside her, Lyra's rucksack and books in her arms. She handed them over and Lyra  
took them gratefully. 

"How will we get to Oxford? They're bound to know that's where I'd go. Can we risk another boat?" Lyra asked.

Serafina Pekkala smiled and said, "There is already a boat waiting upriver."

And then Lyra was beaming.

~

The cabin of the narrowboat was warm, heat emanating from the stove in the corner. Lyra was  
seated on a cushioned bench, shoveling stew into her mouth like the half-savage she had once been. Seated with her were Tony and Billy Costa, tucking into their own bowls. 

When she had seen the boat and then seen who was waiting for her on its deck, relief so strong it nearly sent her to her knees had filled Lyra. She had run to them, into their waiting arms feeling like she wanted to cry but laughing instead. 

Serafina Pekkala waited a moment, then she'd joined them on the deck. "This is where I leave you, Lyra Silvertongue. You will be safe now."

"Must you go?" Lyra had asked.

"For now," Serafina had said. They had hugged and said their farewells. Then the witch had flown off into the dreary sky.

Now, all three of them finished their stew and slumped in their seats, happily full. They spent the evening telling stories over cups of ale. The Costas told her of John Faa's death (an attack of the heart, while he slept), which was sad and of Billy's marriage, which made her smile. Lyra had told them some of where she had traveled, though not why, and described some of the more interesting people and rituals she'd experienced. It felt like a first taste of home and her longing for the comfort and familiarity of Oxford intensified to an acute ache.

But by the time they decided to turn in, Lyra was more than ready for sleep. 

~

Serafina Pekkala flew onward, over the dark rolling hills of the English countryside. The tingling caress of starlight chasing the wind through her hair and the soft kiss of moonlight on her skin was the same wonderful feeling she had known all her long life. Her heartbeat to the rhythm of the Earth itself, as ever. She could sense nothing amiss in the living music of the world around her, no unmistakable, unsettling sensations of another world, no sour hint of trouble brewing. 

Could her senses be failing her? Because all was not as it should be. When Lyra had first told her of her plans, Serafina had understood. It was a terrible thing that had happened to her and to Will, an unfair thing. But she knew, more than Lyra could understand in her inexperience, that life was unfair more often than it wasn't. She knew that the girl's hopes would likely be disappointed in time without Serafina aiding in the matter. So, she had listened and told Lyra that if that was what her heart told her she needed to do, then she should do it, believing that she would fail and that would be the end of it. 

After what she had heard from Lyra's teacher and what Lyra herself had told her, she was not so certain. She had never dreamed that the two of them, barely more than children still, would come as far as they had. She and Lyra had spoken quite a lot more while on the ship, Lyra had clearly been bursting to talk about Will, and Serafina was certain that whatever it was that they were doing, Lyra was not dreaming it. And she was certain that now neither of them would stop until they were together once more. Other forces in the world knew that too, and did not like the idea. She hoped that they, Will and Lyra, would remember the consequences of the subtle knife and Lord Asriel's experimenting, but what if in their desperation they did something worse?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she sensed Kaisa returning and the snow goose fell in beside her. "Are they ready, Kaisa?" she asked him.

"Yes, they know that she is coming."

"Was there anything that seemed out of place?"

"Not that I could see," he said, then looked more closely at her. "Are you well, Serafina?"

She shook her head. "Uneasy in my heart."

"Perhaps you should tell the others."

They flew in silence for a time while Serafina considered then she said, "No, this is not yet a witch matter. Many of us suffered greatly in Asriel's war and the losses were many. I would not put that before them again until I know that I must and that it is right to do so. But I would like to speak with Hannah Relf myself."

It was late when they arrived in Oxford and Serafina was able to locate the residence of Dame Hannah Relf with no difficulty. Every light was out at the large stone cottage. If the situation were not what it was, she would have returned in the morning, but Serafina did not have the time to delay. She rung the bell and waited. After a moment, the lights came on one after another as someone came to answer the door.

An older woman answered it in a neatly tied dressing gown, looking prepared to scold, but her eyes widened at the sight of Serafina. "I mean you no harm," the witch said. "I have come to speak to Hannah Relf."

"I am Hannah Relf. And you must be Serafina Pekkala. Please, come in."

Serafina followed her into a well-furnished but practical sitting room. "As I am certain I know why you are here, I think I will have a brandy. Would you care for one?" the headmistress said to Serafina and poured herself a snifter from a crystal decanter.

"Thank you, no." The brandy in Hannah Relf's hand paused on the way to her mouth and Serafina explained, "We do not take spirits. To do so would be to deny ourselves the connection to Mother Earth which has been gifted to us."

"Understood," Hannah said and took a drink from the snifter. "I assume you want to speak of Lyra."

"I do. I have known her long, but you have known her well."

"She is a remarkable girl. One we are both proud to know, I am sure. Has she told you of her intentions?"

They each took a seat in comfortable chairs beside an empty fireplace, their daemons becoming acquainted nearby. Serafina said, "She told me a long while ago. It seems I have underestimated her, and the boy, Will."

"You met him, did you not? I only know what Lyra has told me, and she did not often speak of him, especially after the first few months at our boarding school."

"He was...formidable. A bit frightening to tell the truth. The witch queen Ruta Skadi once told me that he was the same kind as Lord Asriel, and she was right in a way. But beneath that, he had a kinder heart than Asriel ever possessed." Then, understanding why the headmistress had asked, she added, "I imagine he is much the same now. We are sky people, the gyptians water people, and Lyra fire, but the boy was stone, steady in his nature."

Hannah Relf's marmoset dæmon jumped up to the arm of her chair and she absently scratched between his ears. "Thank you. Has Lyra made much progress then?"

"She has not, no, but he has. He has found a way of coming to her in a sort of waking dream. And their scholar Mary Malone has been working on a way to cross the worlds in body as well as mind. I find this very troubling."

"Has he?" Hannah Relf said, lowering her snifter slowly to her lap. "It is no wonder then, that sleeping things seem to be stirring."

"What I wish to know, is what you think Lyra will do. She has asked me to help her as I have before. But I worry that she, and he, will not have the strength to make the right choice twice, if the outcome will part them once more."

The headmistress tapped a fingernail on her glass, once, twice. "Of course, I wish I could say that she would always do the right thing. But I just don't know. I don't even know if I could, put in her shoes. What I do know, is that she will try. When she came back, she spent years trying, trying so hard she had nearly fooled herself. And she would never do anything that she knew would cause others harm for her own gain. So, I believe that she will try to see every possible outcome before she acts. Just the same, that does not mean that whatever they do may not have unseen consequences."

This was as much as Serafina had expected, but it was good to hear it from another. "Then I shall leave you now. Thank you for speaking with me."

"You are welcome. Thank you, for helping her."

Serafina only nodded, then left the cottage, she and Kaisa taking to the skies once more.


	9. Schrodinger's Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can clearly tell, I have changed the title and the summary but all the previous chapters are exactly the same. To those of you who are following the story, thank you for your patience with this chapter. 
> 
> Now that there is a good amount of content, I would love to hear your thoughts on the pace of the story overall, on the plot so far, if there are moments that really drew you in vs. moments that didn't hold your interest, etc. Or just any feedback you'd like to share. Thanks for reading!

Will didn’t realize that class had ended until the small lecture hall filled with the sounds of books being closed and students stampeding down the stairs toward the exit, laughing or eagerly debating. Kirjava crawled out from under his chair and stretched, her sharp teeth exposed in a great cat yawn. Packing up his untouched notepad (he hadn't even taken out his textbook), he rose from his seat and slung his rucksack over one shoulder. He was irritated with himself. In his last year he was well out of the classroom so he didn't need this course to graduate, but when his favorite professor and faculty advisor had told him he would be teaching a seminar on the neural mechanisms of attention and awareness, Will had been eager to sign up. Now he had missed almost the entire day's lecture. The irony was not lost on him. 

"Will," Professor Title called to him from the front of the room, "can I talk to you for a minute?" 

Any hope Will'd had that Title had not noticed his complete lack of attention fell away and he trudged resignedly to the podium, Kirjava trotting along beside him. "I'm sorry, professor. I'll get today's notes from someone." 

"I'm glad to hear it. But that's not what I wanted to discuss." 

Surprised, Will only said, "No?" 

Professor Title was a large man with a hooked nose and steel grey hair with bushy caterpillar eyebrows to match. He was that rare breed of teacher that made every student work hard for every good mark, but students would fight to get on the waiting list to take his classes over the easy A anyway. And though he took the science very seriously, he had a surprisingly witty sense of humor. Every day, he chalked a new joke along the top of the board. Will's personal favorite was: "saying 'we can still be friends' after a breakup is like saying 'the dog died, but you can still keep it.'" 

Title pressed his fingers together in front of his chest and said, "No. Something rather strange happened the other day. Something regarding you." It was clear that his teacher was searching for the words to continue, so Will said nothing, letting him. "Do you know anyone named George Lawson?" 

"No," Will said slowly. "Why?" 

"A man named George Lawson came to my office. He wanted to know about you." 

Suddenly at attention, Will asked, "What did you tell him?" 

"Well, nothing. There wasn't much I could say. He asked about your research and I told him that you were focused on neurology. He asked if you were looking into any multi-world theories and I said that you weren't, to the best of my knowledge. He seemed disappointed. This was all highly irregular in itself, but then he began to ask more personal questions. 

"He wanted to know about your relationship with Mary, how involved you were in her work, if I had noticed anything unusual about you. I told him that I wasn't comfortable sharing that sort of information about a student and asked him to leave. For a moment, I thought he was going to insist, but then he just smiled and thanked me for my time. There was something about the whole thing, about his demeanor, that didn't feel right." 

"What did this man, George Lawson, what did he look like?" Will said, trying to keep his tone neutral. 

After he had returned to life in his world, Will had not seen or heard anything about the pale-haired man, had never found out what had happened to him. He still didn't even know what role the man, and the one he had killed, had played in the greater scheme. He'd come to the conclusion that Sir Charles, Lord Boreal, whoever he was, had hired them but since Sir Charles was dead, that should have been the end of it. 

Not knowing had never sat well with Will. What if their involvement went beyond Sir Charles, had never even been connected to him? They had wanted information about the window his father was searching for, Will was sure of that. But he couldn't remember seeing anyone from his world in Asriel's army. Did they know that the windows were all closed? Did they know what had happened? If they didn't, they might still be looking. Still, why wait until now, all these years later? 

Title shrugged his wide shoulders and said, "Brown hair, average height, wore a suit – nice but nothing over the top. Why?" 

"Just curious." 

"Listen, Will," his teacher said, eyes worried, "I don't want to nose in where I shouldn't, but is everything alright? You've been a bit distracted, and then this. Is there something going on?" 

Will was tempted to shut down and tell Title to mind his own business, but he forced a guilty smile and said, "There's a girl." 

Title seemed a little relieved by this and he smiled. "A girl? Perhaps one with a very protective father?" he said with a wink. 

"Yeah, maybe," Will said, happy to go along with this. He didn't think for a minute that Title believed that some girl's father would interrogate a professor about her boyfriend's research; it was just a way for them to end the awkward conversation. "I better get going." 

"Right. My door's always open, you know that." 

"I do. Thanks, Professor." 

As he walked across campus, he longed to tell Lyra what had happened. But of course, he couldn't, not for hours yet. And once he did, he would just have to leave her again. It was always too soon. Every time he had to return to his own reality, it was too soon. He felt like Schrodinger's cat, both alive and not with nothing to do but wait until someone finally opened the box. 

 

~ 

 

Jericho was being watched though no one was searching the gyptian ships yet. Clearly, the magisterium had enough power to have their agents authorize the search of a port, which could be explained by worries over illegal imports, disease, and a number of other things, but not enough to justify invading private vessels. The restriction hadn't deterred them much though. According to Billy Costa, they had eyes on shore, covering most of Oxford. It would be obvious to anyone that if Lyra returned to England, she would find her way back here. Her habits and friends in the city were well documented, so of course, anyone who wanted to find her would be monitoring them. Still, it irritated Lyra more than it frightened her. After years of being largely unnoticed, although she now supposed less so than she'd thought, she was being hunted down again, the center of unwanted attention from all sides. 

"Ye'll have to stay below for now," Billy said. 

Lyra had already been confined to the cabin for days and she didn't imagine it would take long for an opportunity to sneak her off the narrowboat to come about so she didn't bother making a fuss. "They're watching Jordan too, I reckon." 

Billy nodded. "You'll have some work getting past 'em. But we'll help." 

They were in the cabin with the stove enjoying the heat and sipping on little glasses of jenniver. For a while, they sat in companionable silence, Billy's bittern dæmon looking out a high, narrow window with Pantalaimon. Then Lyra asked, "Do you remember Bolvanger?" 

"Sure," he said, "some. "Why?" 

Both dæmons turned from the window to listen. Lyra fidgeted a bit. "What do you remember?" 

"I dunno, Lyra. I remember being there and everyone worrying 'bout what was goin' to happen to us and our dæmons particular. Then you were there and said John Faa was a coming and it felt like a miracle. And I remember watchin' those dæmons fly off, only I didn't know what they were at the time. Most a what I remember, if I'm being honest, is being bored and wondering if I we was ever gonna get home." 

"Do you still think about it?" 

"No, I guess I don't. It was so long ago." 

Jealousy and anger, though she knew it was unfair, rose up in Lyra. How could it be that he barely remembered that disgusting place? Why couldn't she do the same? Billy had been there for longer than she had, but he wasn't haunted by it. 

Pan shuddered at the same time Lyra did when they remembered those hands, hateful alien hands reaching inside her very soul as they held him and pulled them apart into separate mesh cages. She would be like poor Tony Makarios and Pan would be floating, lost and alone in the world, searching for a heart he would never find again. Then it had been Mrs. Coulter, her mother, who had saved them. It made her sick. And it made her sad that Will's were not the only hands that had touched something so precious and private. Billy didn't know the terror or the joy of either. For Billy Costa, Bolvanger was only a faint memory of fearful days easily left in the past. 

When she didn't say anything, Billy asked, "D'you think about it, Lyra?" 

Lyra thought about lying and saying that she didn't, but she didn't see the point. And maybe a small part of her wanted to make him feel bad about forgetting. Or maybe she just felt wretched and wanted company. "I never told you before, what with the gyptians coming and everything that happened, but just before that they tried to separate us, Pan and me. They came this close," Lyra said and held up her thumb and her forefinger just an inch apart to demonstrate. "Just like they done with all those other kids. So, yes, I still think about it." 

Billy flinched from her vehemence. "I'm sorry, Lyra. I shouldn't've –" he started to say but Lyra stopped him. 

"No, don't. I'm just so sick of this. I'm so sick of people and the harm they do to each other. And I'm only one person, just one girl. How am I suppose to make people see the truth when they cling to lies and turn away from the terrible things done in their name? How am I supposed to do anything at all?" 

"Maybe you don't gotta." 

Lyra shook her head and Pan flowed up to her lap to press himself close to her. "I do. Even if I don't want to they won't let me. Everyone has decided I got a role to play, and so I do. 'Cause they'll kill me or use me or search for me no matter what I do. They won't let me be, long as they think I'll be the cause a something bad – or something good." 

"What'll you do then?" 

"I dunno," she said with a sigh. 

The handle of the cabin door jiggled and they both jumped, their heads whipping toward the sound. Lyra's heart sprang to her throat as her eyes honed in on the secured bolt that would keep out whoever was outside, out, but was also trapping her in. 

"Billy Costa, you open this door for your mother," came a deep, mighty voice that brooked no argument and made Lyra feel immediately safe. 

Billy leapt up to do as he was bid and Lyra got to her feet too and the room seemed suddenly filled with the impressive presence of Ma Costa. Her hair had greyed and the lines scoring her face were deeper, but she still had the look of someone who wouldn't hesitate to clout Lyra for her cheek then feed her hot gingerbread. Then Lyra was being folded up in the gyptian woman's great arms. 

"Lyra, child," she said and just then Lyra did feel exactly like a child, wanting a mother's hug she'd never known. "I wish it weren't 'cause you're mixed up again, but I am a glad to see you." 

When Ma Costa released her, Lyra saw that someone else had come into the cabin with her. He still had his walking sticks and trembled like an aspen leaf, but though he was years older than when she had last seen him, Farder Coram looked somehow younger than she remembered. Now that she was an adult herself, she could see the proud set of his shoulders and the spark of vitality in his wise eyes, despite the ailments of his body. His cat dæmon, Sophonax sat beside him, the many shades of her rich, forbidden fur glowing in the naphtha light. It reminded Lyra of Kirjava's rippling coat, the day to her night. 

"Farder Coram!" she said and stepped around Ma Costa to rush to him. 

He kissed her on both cheeks then propped his sticks against the wall to embrace her. "Hello, Lyra," he said. 

"Billy, go and help Tony bring the eels in," Ma Costa told her son. Then to Lyra and Farder Coram she said, "Set you down there, the both of you and I'll make us some supper."


	10. Staircase Twelve

"Now, Lyra, show me what you've learned," Farder Coram said. 

The Costas were above, keeping an eye on the city and the spies lurking in it and Lyra was still in the cabin with Farder Coram. She had the alethiometer and her books of reading out on the table before them. 

"It en't like it was before," she told him. "I don't think it will be ever again, but I can read it. What should I ask?" 

Farder Coram thought for a moment, then said, "Can you ask how many spies are watching for you in Jericho now?" 

She had the answer almost immediately. "There's four, two nearby and two further up the canal." 

"You didn't need the books." 

"Not for something like that, not for a long while anyway." 

"Well that's really something. I'm proud of you, Lyra." Color rushed to Lyra's cheeks at his praise and her fingers fiddled unconsciously with the handles of the alethiometer. She was trying to think of a response when Farder Coram said quietly, "I imagine there's one question particular you've put to it." 

Thinking of the cliff-ghasts and Iorek and Serafina Pekkala, she opened her mouth to lie, but Pantalaimon nipped her elbow. "Pan, that hurt!" she said, rubbing at the bite, even though it hadn't really. 

He stretched up to hiss in her ear, "Don't lie to Farder Coram. Maybe he'll be on our side." 

Farder Coram and Sophonax were watching the exchange with neutral eyes and didn't comment. Lyra didn't think she could bear another person she loved, who she'd taken for granted would always help her, tell her that she ought to leave well enough alone, but at Pan's urging, she said, "There is. I don't have an answer though. It’s like I just can't make any sense of it, can't see the connections. I think maybe it's making the answer as complicated as it can 'cause it doesn't want me to know." 

"Could be," Farder Coram said thoughtfully. "Or it could be you got more to learn." 

Well, she hadn't considered that. As far as she knew there was no one else who knew more about the alethiometer, so if there was more to learn she didn't know who could teach her. But then she thought maybe that wasn't what Farder Coram meant. 

"Yeah," she said. "There is one person I thought could maybe help me. I wrote him a letter before I left Svalbard." 

"All knowledge is good knowledge, even if it doesn't seem to suit a purpose straight off." 

Just then the door opened and Tony Costa stuck his head in. "Time to go, Lyra. You ready?" 

~ 

"Where are we?" Will asked. 

They were in her narrow room at the top of Staircase Twelve. She took his hands in hers and tipped her head back, breathing in deep. "Jordan," she said. 

Will looked around, taking in the unremarkable bed, the bare walls, and the chipped basin in the corner. "This is where you grew up." 

"This very room, nearly all my life. But this en't where I was mostly. Come on, I want to show you." 

She led him to the window and threw open the casement to the night sky. She was tall enough now that she didn't really need it, but she pulled up her old chair and stepped out into the gutter. To make room for Will, she started to climb up the roof tiles and called for him to follow. Even though she had a key now that led straight to the roof of the Lodge Tower, for some reason, it felt important that he see her roof this way. 

When she reached the topmost ridge she sat, chin in hands and Will joined her a minute later. She leaned into him, staring out over the city and he put his arm around her. The lights of this Oxford weren't as numerous or bright as they were in Will's, and the towers of Jordon rose as dark shadows amongst the stars sparkling like diamonds on black velvet. 

"Do you know what I used to think experimental theology was?" she said. 

"No, tell me." 

She smiled and peered up at him only to see that he was already looking down at her. For a moment, the sight of him arrested her heart, stole her breath. It was still unbelievable that he wasn't lost to her. He kissed her forehead and waited expectantly. 

"I used to think the stars had dæmons," she said, "and experimental theology involved the Scholars talking to them." 

He laughed, rich and deep. "That does not surprise me at all." 

Taking his hand once more, she pulled him up with her, eager to show him everything. From this vantage point, which was how Lyra knew Jordan College best, she guided him to the chapel and around the Melrose Quadrangle, the library where she and Roger had caught the rook, Pilgrim's Tower, the Sheldon Building (which she had, in fact, managed to get onto through the skylight. It wasn't as exciting as she'd hoped and she hadn't bothered again since), the lodge off Turl Street, past Pamler's Tower and back to the tiles above her window. All the while she told him stories and Will could understand now just how upsetting it had been for her to discover that there was no Jordan College in his world. 

They perched on the ridge again. Beneath them was the Yaxley Quadrangle and the Master's somber house, which she pointed out to Will. 

"I saw him today for the first time in years and he's so old. It frightened me, Will. I can't imagine being like someday, with a mind that's still young and knows more than ever before, but a body that's just dying all around me and nothing to do for it. I en't afraid of dying, I'm afraid of getting old," she confessed. 

He turned her face toward his, staring at her with an expression that she couldn't read, but could feel burning beneath the surface. Then his mouth came down on hers in a possessive, devouring kiss. Strong hands gripped her waist and the nape of her neck, pulling her close. He nipped her lips, demanding entry and when she obeyed, she could taste the anger in it. Before she could think how to respond, he pulled abruptly away, breathing hard and pressed his forehead to hers. 

"Never," he said, his voice deathly calm, "say that again. Do you know what an agony it is to me every day, to know that you are in danger and I can do nothing? To pray every night that you are still alive? I am very much afraid of you dying." 

His grip had not loosened but she wriggled her arms free and ran her fingers through his hair, clasping them behind his neck. "Oh, Will, I'm so sorry. I never thought how it must be for you. If it was me ..." she shuddered. "I promise, I won't even think it." 

He kissed her again. The anger was gone, but she knew he was still troubled. She decided then not to tell him that two assassins had spotted her on St. Giles and she'd only just got away after ducking into the gates of St. John's and running through the grounds to Park's Road then down the back way to Jordan.


	11. On hold

I'm sorry readers but I need to put this story on hold. I promise it is not over; I just don't have the time to commit right now. Chapter 12 will be up by the end of the month and back on a regular schedule. I appreciate your patience!


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